Someone I Forgot to Be
by MatildaMavis
Summary: AU. Dean and Cas were in love, once - until something happened to blow it all to hell. But fate's a sadistic bitch that throws them together again eight years later, because maybe they've matured enough to be able to handle it this time. ...Fate has clearly overestimated Dean Winchester.
1. Chapter 1

"God _dammit,_ Dean, you just had to get the heaviest fucking mattress-"

"Don't swear around the memory foam, Sammy. It _remembers_ things."

Sam huffs and tugs the Tempurpedic another two feet out of the truck. "But it's ridiculous, Dean. You don't even need a king-sized bed, you're way too short to take up so much space."

"I'm SIX FOOT ONE, dick. That's _tall _among humans. Don't be a bitch just because you're the freakishly giant love child of a giraffe and musk ox. Everyone looks small from such great heights."

Sam makes Patented Winchester Bitchface #47 and squats down to get a better grip. Dean, who is supposedly shoving the other end of the mattress from deep inside the U-Haul, smirks and only pretends to help because (a) he's a dick and (b) he so rarely gets the opportunity to torture his little brother these days. He's almost forgotten how much fun it is.

Sam staggers back under the weight, making some noise that's oddly similar to wookiee language (and if Sam doesn't cut that fucking hair soon, Dean's _really _not going to be able to tell the difference between his brother and Chewbacca) and Dean laughs, scrambling to finally help.

Sam huffs and lifts his end. "It's not like I don't have anything better to do than help you move in, you know."

Dean grunts and starts shuffling toward the condo's propped open door. "Yeah, I know. I'm sure Jess had a thrilling day of Lamaze classes and making your own organic baby food planned."

Sam stops, frowning as he tries to determine how to angle the bed and get it up the front steps. "Ooh, burn, Dean. I'm married and happy and having a child, whereas you're just now getting around to moving in with a woman at the ripe old age of 30."

Dean glares. "I'm 29, bitch."

"For how many years now?"

He doesn't answer, because of course Sam knows that he turned 30 last January and has yet to admit to it. They wrangle the mattress until it's midway up the steps to Lisa's front porch, one her condo shares with the neighbor. Dean doesn't think he will ever get used to how crowded together people live in this city, happily spending half a million dollars for a glorified duplex. But whatever, it's where Sam's practice is and where Jess is going to have his nephew, where he's going to finally live in the same city with the girl he met when they all came down to Florida on vacation last spring. Some sacrifices are worth it.

"Alright, we're gonna have to turn it sideways through the door and then angle it up the stairs-"

Sam bobbles and drops his end. "Ok, well hold on, I've gotta set it down a sec-"

"Sam, I don't have it. SAM I DON'T HAVE THE MOTHERFUCK-"

Dean's warning makes its way through the thin air in the stratosphere up around Sam's head two seconds too late, the mattress careening wildly to the left as Dean tries to control it on his own. He fails, of course, in spectacular Dean Winchester fashion, so that his efforts to stop 150 pounds of memory foam only serve to send the corner of it directly into the front window of the condo next door. Shattered glass rains around them, a security alarm blaring into the quiet Sunday morning for half a minute before it quiets from a series of electronic beeps on a control pad deep in the now-broken condo.

Blood wells from a tiny cut on the back of his hand, but Dean doesn't bother to swear. He isn't even surprised, not really, because this is exactly how everything has been for the past four days. He got not one but two flat tires on the drive up from Florida, and a fucking wheelbarrow – seriously, _a wheelbarrow? - _flew off the back of a pickup in front of him, cracking the U-Haul's windshield and sending scenes from his pathetic life flashing before his eyes as he careened wildly across the interstate to avoid wrecking completely. So why should Dean think that he could move his belongings into the townhouse without sucking Lisa's neighbors into his vortex of shittiness?

But then the neighbor's face peers outside, blinking and terrified through the jagged shards of glass still trapped in the window frame, and Dean realizes just how completely and truly fucked he really is.

* * *

Castiel had been watching – from the far end of his living room to ensure that no one looking at the building would be able to see him – curious about the new neighbor. He'd never actually speak to him, of course, just like he hadn't talked to the petite brunette who'd moved in last year, so his only way of gleaning any sort of information was from lurking at his own window like some reverse peeping Tom.

But now there's a goddamned mattress in his house and all the inside air is flowing out and the outside air is coming in and there's a man staring in through the mess with absurdly green eyes and a crooked smile of apology.

Sweet Jesus, he's going to have to actually deal with the outside world.

Cas isn't sure if he's going to throw up and pass out or smile back like a normal human, so he splits the difference, awkwardly leaning out into the sunshine to inspect the damage. And then he gets a better look at Dean and adopts the same terrified trapped-in-the-tractor-beam-of-an-alien-spaceship panicky expression he sees on that familiar face.

Sam, watching Dean stare mutely at the man whose property they just destroyed, grows fully convinced that his brother has lost the last vestiges of basic human decency their mother tried to drill into him and decides to intervene on his behalf. "Ah, man, I'm so sorry. Hell of a way to introduce ourselves, isn't it? I'm Sam and this is my brother Dean, your new neighbor," Sam smiles as he trails off, his eyes flicking between Castiel and Dean, who hasn't moved. He's just standing there, sparkling shards of shattered glass littering the porch and the toes of his beat-up boots, absently rubbing the back of his neck. He won't stop staring at Cas with that look on his face like the first time Sam rented _Total Recall _and the chick with three tits came on the screen.

But this is so much more than that. This is a hallucination or a seizure, maybe a brain tumor. Because Dean has seen some combination of these features a hundred thousand times in the past eight years. Unnaturally blue eyes, a mop of the most unruly black hair. Beautiful hands with long fingers, blunt nails that used to scratch at the tiny hairs on the back of Dean's neck when they'd kiss.

He's fucked women solely because their hair was just the right shade of black, or their skin was pale and soft. For six months, he drove halfway across Orlando to get coffee every morning because the barista's lips were a chapped, pouty mess – and the day he found out she'd quit without notice he felt like he'd lost something precious all over again. Hell, the reason he even went after Lisa that first night was because the slope of her neck echoed faintly at his memory of Cas, bent over his textbook in the lecture hall. For years, every time he saw some face that hinted at this one - a man hailing a cab on a street corner, the guy who made sandwiches at the corner deli - Dean's heart would leap. He'd have visceral flashbacks; the feel of those delicate fingers gripping his hips, the taste of Cas' sweat when he licked across the knobs of his spine, the way his eyes would heat and flash when Dean reminded him about personal space in public. And Dean would think - _its here. That moment when we meet again. And I'm not ready._

But this isn't a doppelganger, or some weird coincidence of genetics. It's Cas, really _Cas_, staring out at Dean from the broken window next door to the girl he's been dating, long distance, for a year now, and Dean's goofy brother looking at him like he's checking for stroke symptoms, and-

_Oh, Jesus, don't let Sam figure this out. Be unintuitive for once in your life, you giant freak._

And once Dean lets that thought in, all the tiny shallow reasons why he suddenly wants the Earth to open up and swallow him whole come roaring into his brain. Like the stupid "Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver" t-shirt he's wearing because he knows it annoys Sam and Dean doesn't care if it gets messed up from the move. Or the jeans that are a size bigger than the ones that were always wadded up on the floor of Cas' apartment because he has a little pudge to accommodate now thanks to too many beers and an extreme lack of will to exercise.

And, oh yeah, there's the tiny fact that he's finally moved on with his stupid life – holding down a job for once and moving to the other end of the country to shack up with Lisa, his longtime long-distance girlfriend.

Who happens to have purchased the fancy-ass condo RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the man who single-handedly ruined a rather large chunk of Dean's 20s.

Fuck the entire motherfucking universe.

And then it gets a thousand times worse, because Cas finds his voice, that same smoke and gravel that Dean had worked so hard to forget.

"Hello, Dean."

* * *

_It's a night class with a professor who loves taking attendance and speaks like Ben Stein without any of the humor, so, basically, Dean's in hell every Wednesday from 6-9 pm. Tonight he's taken to trying to find constellations in the freckles on the back of the boy's neck in front of him just to keep himself awake, but he can't do much better than naming a tiny cluster of zig-zagging ones right at the neckline of his t-shirt Cassiopeia. And Dean must have spaced out at some point, because when the fire alarm suddenly blares into the silence, he leaps and shrieks in a way that not even _he _can convince himself is manly. _

"_Thank God," Cassiopeia-Boy mutters as he stands, slinging an old backpack over one thin shoulder and slipping out into the aisle. Dean falls into step behind him as the others squeal and haul ass to every possible exit, leaving the two of them as the only calm students in the auditorium... but then, it is a general education political science class and a fire alarm is probably the most exciting thing that will happen to any of them all week._

_Dean steps out into the fading sunlight and takes a deep breath of non-academically oppressive air. It's the end of September and dusk, but it's also Central Florida so the air is still thick with heat and humidity. Not that it seems to matter to Cass (as Dean's decided to think of him, since 'Cassiopeia-Boy' has enough syllables that Dean's laziness can't handle them all) as he shoves his arms into a ratty trench coat, twitching at the left cuff to check the time._

"_Seven-oh-three," Dean offers, and Cass is so startled at being spoken to that he jumps twice as much as he did over the fire alarm._

"_Thank you," he finally mutters, his eyes skipping to Dean's and away again. They stand, a socially-acceptable distance apart as they stare at the clearly-not-in-flames social sciences building for a long moment in silence. Someone else must have thought "History of Congressional Acts" was an ungodly torture session too and taken things into their own hands. If Dean had any faith at all, he'd send up a prayer of thanks for the unexpected liberation._

"_Professor Dick-Breath's already taken attendance. He won't really do it again when we get the all clear to go back in, d'ya think?"_

_Cass' face lights up, like the thought of ditching hadn't actually occurred to him before and is almost too delicious to contemplate. "No," he finally answers, drawing the word out like he wants to savor the taste of it. "Most likely not."_

"_Then it's settled." Dean grins, wide enough to show teeth, and gestures to the parking lot with his head. "Let's go get a beer."_

_Dean's got no fucking clue what he's doing. All he knows is that he doesn't want to go back to class but if he goes home, alone, to his sad little room above Harvelle's Tavern Jo will whine until he takes over the rest of her shift at the bar. And fuck that, because Wednesdays are the only nights Dean has off. _

_(There's also a tiny piece of his brain that reminds him that he's strangely fascinated with this guy that he knows absolutely nothing about, but Dean doesn't understand how to process that kind of information about himself, so he tells it to shut the hell up.)_

_Cass, startled, stares for a long moment before nodding, small and almost to himself, and falls into step beside Dean. _

"_We can, uh, take my car, if you want." Dean's awkward, suddenly, and Dean doesn't do awkward. Dean does cocky and swaggering, and if he can't get there on his own he drinks until his confidence swells. Maybe he'll get a whiskey instead of that beer._

"_That would be preferable, since I don't have a vehicle." Cass is so formal, his voice unnaturally deep and a terrible match for those soft lips and adorable bedhead. Everything about him seems alien and fascinating to Dean, who has spent his 21 years making friends almost exclusively with some combination of rednecks and alcoholics and gruff assholes._

_They trudge through the parking lot in silence for a moment, someone having finally silenced the false alarm blaring from the building behind them. "It's this one, here," Dean says, stopping at a half-unfinished car at least 25 years old and roughly the size of a hearse. He blushes, slightly, as he unlocks the driver's door. "I know it doesn't look like much, but this baby's gonna be beautiful once I get the money to treat her right."_

_Cass appraises the car evenly, tilting his head and nodding again. "I can see that."_

_Dean clears his throat and wrenches the door open on squeaking hinges, leaning across the seat to pop open the passenger's side. Cass climbs in, storing his bag primly at his feet and folding his hands across the knees of his pants. _

"_I thought we could go to this place that I work – Harvelle's, you ever heard of it?" Cass doesn't answer beyond a silent shake of his head. "It's kind of a dive, but it's cheap and there's some good people there."_

"_Alright."_

_That's it, just calm assent. And now Dean's starting to wonder about this guy. Who just gets in a car with a total stranger and lets them drive him off to anywhere?_

_He tries to make it better. "My name's Dean, by the way."_

_Cass answers, swiftly and surely. "I know. Dean Winchester, next to last on the class roster. I'm Castiel Novak."_

_And now Dean knows why his little nickname for the guy seemed to fit – although he now mentally amends it to have only one 's'. He's heard Professor Ass-Monkey call roll every class for over a month and a name as weird as "Castiel" was bound to sink into his subconscious in some way._

_('And you thought he was cute so you sort of paid attention' whispered that self-aware part of his brain that he now officially hated.)_

"_Right, right," Dean says, the Impala roaring to life underneath him and ruining any chances they may have had at ditching class unnoticed. "Nice to officially meet you, Cas."_

_Dean should be watching the road, not his passenger, but he can't help but catch the tiny smile that tugs at Castiel's mouth over the nickname, or the way he eases back a fraction into the worn leather of the seat, his long fingers relaxing where they're laced together. _

"_You too. Hello, Dean."_

* * *

That smile is nowhere to be found now, where the window is far from the only thing that's broken. Dean can see it, or rather the lack of it, in Cas' eyes – the color as brilliant as he remembered but the contents dusty, muted. Like cataracts on his fucking soul or something, and that thought alone makes Dean want to roll his eyes with how fantastically lame he becomes the second Cas comes anywhere near him. Instead, he just clears his throat and steps forward, glass crunching into the boards under his feet.

"Hey, Cas."

Sam, whose presence Dean had completely forgotten, looks at him with his disgustingly cheerful Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog face. "You guys know each other?"

Dean swallows, hard, and forces his face into something close to a normal expression. "Yeah, we, uh, went to college together." He doesn't bother to look at Cas when he says it, all too familiar with the collected features of judgmental disappointment Cas wears every time Dean downplays their relationship in public.

If only Cas knew.

"Awesome!" Sam says, oblivious and adorable. "What are the chances you'd move all the way to Massachusetts and wind up with a girlfriend, brother, and old friend right in the neighborhood?"

Dean is silent for a beat too long, his eyes drawn back to Cas' dark blue ones, wide and wild and burning with something that Dean's always been too afraid to name.

But Cas collects himself faster than Dean does, like he always has, and answers Sam.

"Yes, it's..." Cas looks away and takes a half step back, moving deep into the shadow of his foyer. "It's great," he says, but it sounds like he's suddenly a great distance away, lost in the impenetrable dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: You guys. I just... I really love you guys. *sniff***

* * *

Dean, his voice as rough and scratched as the toes of his boots, mumbles something about patching up Cas' busted window and practically sprints back to his house. Sam shuffles around awkwardly for a moment, then trails off after him with an apologetic look at Cas when it becomes apparent that Dean's not coming back.

Five minutes pass, time that Cas spends tearing madly around his house. He tosses out the empty bottles cluttering the coffee table, shoves the piles of dirty clothes littering the floor into his closet, and scrubs the coffee breath from his tongue.

_Do I have time to shave? Or maybe shower? When did I stop keeping up with basic hygiene? It's no excuse that I never leave the house and no one comes over, I should still act like a normal human and oh, God, is that a pimple? What am I, a teenager? Who gets pimples at 30? _

_DAMN IT, CAS. Get it together._

The doorbell rings, shaking him out of his rapid spiral of self-loathing and Cas is sure his heart is going to actually explode before he can get down the stairs, his hand shaking as he twists the handle and flings it open.

But it's just Sam, standing on the porch with a tarp, duct tape, and Dean's word that he'll have a brand new window installed by midweek.

Sam comes in to tape up the window and Cas lurks in the foyer, watching his every motion. He's trying to find hints of Dean in his little brother, like the way Sam's eyes narrow and wrinkle at the corners when he's concentrating or how he rubs his thumb absently around his ring. Cas wants to tell him that he feels like he knows him, that so many of the hundred tiny midnight confessions between Cas and Dean, lying vulnerable and curled around one another in the inky dark of Dean's bed in that room above Harvelle's, were about Sam. How Dean's voice would always go soft and warm as he told stories from his childhood, talking all about his special little brother, the one too brilliant and sensitive to follow in Dean's footsteps, the one that needed private school and the focus that comes with not having to work to put himself through. The one that Dean sacrificed for, over and over in a million different ways while doing his damnedest to keep Sam from ever finding out. Cas wants to tell him because he feels like they're in an exclusive club, he and Sam, a club of people who've been loved - madly, deeply - by Dean Winchester and survived, transformed but burning, brilliantly alive.

But there's nothing in Sam's demeanor to suggest that he has any clue who Castiel is. _And of course not_, Cas thinks, the old bitterness rising in the back of his throat and burning like battery acid. _That's what broke us, in the end._

Sam leaves with a smile and vague promise to see him around, and Cas watches – from the upstairs guest bedroom now, since the front window downstairs is covered in blue plastic – as the brothers finish hauling in the rest of Dean's possessions. Cas feels guilty and torn, like he should offer to help somehow, but the way Dean's face clouds over every time he glances at Cas' home convinces him to stay inside.

And when the brunette comes home with a big smile and affectionate squeeze of Dean's ass, Cas can't stand to watch any more.

Days pass. Dean doesn't actually come to fix the window, but he doesn't break his promise either - he sends someone, a retired contractor who's lacking both his hair and an ass large enough to hold up his jeans, to install a new one. Cas tries to avoid him, but the guy is chatty, telling Cas all about how great the Winchesters are, how Sam really saved his ass when he got into some kind of contract dispute a few years ago, and "I don't know Dean well, but Sam sure thinks the world of him, plus he paid extra to put in the top of the line for you here," at which point Cas has to excuse himself and hide in his bedroom until the work is finished.

He goes down to inspect it later, after the builder's pick-up pulls out of the driveway. The window_ is_ nice, thick and tight and far superior to the one that Dean broke. Cas wants to be impressed, wants to believe that it means something that Dean spent the money to buy the best and hire a professional. But Cas only knows the version of Dean that didn't have money to spare, the one that would have spent all day swearing and sweating and accidentally hammering his thumbs, poring over some home improvement manual he'd checked out of the library just to make sure that it turned out perfect for Cas.

It's dumb and petty and Cas knows it, but every time he walks by that window it just reminds him how very different things are now, and how desperately he wishes they could go back to when the two of them were barely scraping by, living off of noodles and cheap beer and each other.

* * *

Cas wants to be friends with Dean. Well, he wants a lot more than that, but even he hasn't gone crazy enough to hold out any hope for more. Just the fact that Dean's _here _is a miracle, one that Cas is reminded of every time he hears Dean through the thin walls – the shower running and Dean's off-key singing of Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks," the television blaring during every Bruins game, laughter and clanging pots when he and Lisa cook dinner together.

Cas hears other things, too, sounds he wanted to believe that only he could get Dean to make, like that low groan when Dean's toes are curling that vibrates through his entire chest (and Cas remembers exactly what that felt like, their bodies pressed together, the sound etching across Cas' ribs like it could mark him permanently as Dean's own). Cas tries to comfort himself; whispers that at least Dean never calls Lisa's name. He always chanted Cas' like a desperate prayer back when it was Cas' legs he was between, Cas' mouth licking hot and wet and worshiping at his skin.

Cas begs a higher power he no longer believes in to make him forget about these things. He's long past the point of hope and all the memories do is tear at his throat and the backs of his eyes, leaving his breath ragged and vision blurry.

Cas has been alone - truly, painfully, alone - for over five years. That's when his cell rang at 2 am and he was too drunk to bother answering it, in an alley behind a flashy club with some random's mouth on his cock. It wouldn't stop though, loud and insistent in his coat pocket until Cas swore and fished it out. That's how he learned learned that his dad was dead. Chuck Novak, his beloved father and the only part of his family that Cas was still in contact with, had suffered a stroke and died on the other side of the country. "It was quick," the nurse said over the crackling connection, like that should somehow ease the black hole that had opened in Cas' heart.

He hung up and stuffed the phone back into his pocket, suddenly all too sober and aware of the rough brick wall scratching at his shoulders, the sloppy, spit-shiny lips that were still trying to suck him off. And he heaved, spewing the contents of his stomach, every drop of the night's debauchery, there beside him on the wet pavement.

And then he ran, desperate and hollow, drinking for months on end and raging at friends who tried to reach out to him, missing deadlines and book signings until his agent and publisher dropped him. No one could stop him, not until he'd burnt every bridge he had left. He can't remember most of that time, the drugs and liquor and shock combining to give him a blessed blank of amnesia.

Finally, there was nothing and no one left to break, so he bought the condo and retreated, silent and defeated behind its old walls, living off his dead dad's money and floating like a ghost through empty rooms. He thinks, looking back, that he'd convinced himself that if he would just be quiet and still, it would somehow make space for his father to come back to him; like his dad had just gotten lost and would turn up one day, smiling and drinking tea in Cas' armchair.

It never happened, of course, and he has slowly reached a bitter truce with the truth – Cas is on his own, drifting alone and broken through the universe as a washed-up, frightened alcoholic, praying that no one from his brief life in the spotlight ever discovers how he's ended up.

He can still picture the _Times'_ book review from April 10th, 2009, bold and black and seemingly immutable, proclaiming Cas as the resurgence of great American literature. _"Please Don't Give Me Up,_ the debut novel by 22-year-old Castiel Novak, showcases an indisputably gifted writer, one with talent surpassing even the best of his generation." That article is somewhere in the townhouse's basement now, growing yellow and damp, just like the half dozen novels he started but never found the nerve to publish (or, in several cases, finish).

There's a sliver, lodged somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, that says that Dean is the answer to all of it. That if he can resolve this - not the way he wanted to back then, obviously, but get closure of some kind - that he will finally be able to go on with his life. Get his career back, leave this tomb of a house and move among society again, maybe even meet someone...

No. Cas can fool himself into believing he could write again. That he could go to the barber shop and the grocery store and maybe even the corner bar, but even he knows he's full of shit if he thinks there could ever be anyone else.

Eight years ago, he and Dean were broken beyond all recognition. Cas can't come back from that. He knows it. He's always known it.

But showing that weakness to Dean, again? He'd crawl through the broken glass of his window every day for the rest of his completely fucked up life first.

* * *

_"Closing time, boys. Better head on up to your room."_

_Dean turns on his bar stool, trying to follow Ellen's face even though she's spinning and has sprouted a second head._

"_Can't tell me what to do, Ellen," he slurs, cocky._

_She raises an eyebrow. "Sure I can. I'm your boss _and _your landlord, and you love me. Even when you're too drunk to remember why."_

_Dean grins, lazy and content. "'Course I love you. Just trying to show off for my new friend here." He turns to Cas and winks. "We just met tonight and I gotta show him that I can keep up with his class-skipping rebelliousness."_

_Cas, already too susceptible to Dean's bad influence and therefore more drunk than he's ever been in his (admittedly limited) experience, feels Dean's arm sling across his shoulders, heavy and warm and drawing Cas in against his side. Cas, as usual, has no idea what to do, staring across the beat-up bar at Ellen silently, his eyes huge and dark. He can feel Dean's voice in his chest when he speaks._

"_But I can't just head on up. Cas doesn't have a room here, or a car, and I'm in no condition to take him anywhere."_

_Ellen huffs, turning to haul an empty keg into the back room. "Ash didn't come in tonight – your little buddy can have the pool table."_

_Dean snaps his fingers and points at her retreating back. "Oh, right, yeah! Great idea. Ever slept with a bunch of balls, Cas?"_

_Panicking, Cas grabs at Dean's hand hanging over his shoulder and turns those giant blue eyes on him. He wants to beg for something better than a green felt table to sleep on, or to tell Dean to call him a cab (even though he can't afford the fare and isn't even sure he remembers his own address right now). But Cas' brain is too busy doing the backstroke through a lake of bourbon to find any of the necessary words._

_It doesn't matter though – Cas can finally see it in the sparkle of Dean's eyes, the smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He's fucking with him. Cas flushes and looks away, embarrassed. He never can catch onto these things in time._

_Dean, mercifully, lets it go, leaning heavily on Cas as he slides off the bar stool."'C'mon. My room's a craphole but it's right upstairs and I'll even let you have the bed, which isn't crappy at all. It's magical, dude. Made of bunny tears and mermaid's hair or some shit." _

_And even though they've spent the last – Cas checks his watch, willing the gold face to hold still so he can read the roman numerals, wishing for the first time that he just wore a digital one like everyone else – almost seven hours together, laughing and drinking and talking and doing something that looked an awful lot like flirting (at least from his socially dim-witted perspective), Cas is suddenly as awkward as he was the second Dean first spoke to him. His face grows hot and he can't even bring himself to look up at Dean now, despite having spent half the night staring at him hard enough to memorize every freckle and line, each slope and plane and shadow of his skin. _

_Dean doesn't notice, either too drunk or too unfamiliar with Cas to see his anxiety. He just lifts his arm from Cas' shoulders and reaches out to help him to his feet, Cas unbalanced and clinging tightly to Dean's taut forearms for a second longer than he should, their eyes sliding away from one other uneasily. _

_And then Dean is leading him, slow and fumbling, through the bar's tiny manager's office and up a creaking back stairwell. A dim bulb, yellow and caked with dust, hangs from the ceiling and tries to illuminate their path but only succeeds in throwing their features into stark relief, Dean's once-green eyes now dark and shadowed as he reaches the top stair and twists to fumble in his pocket._

_Cas swallows and looks away, because even he knows that it's not normal to stare at someone the way he is right now. Dean is swearing and drops the keys, twice, trying to work the lock with fingers that refuse to respond correctly. Finally, thankfully, Cas hears the sound of metal sliding on metal as Dean wrenches the beat-up door open and stands back, ushering Cas into his home. _

_After their night at the bar, Cas knows this much about Dean – that he's damn near broke but sends every spare penny to his brother, that he's a business major but only because he thinks it will provide the most stable future for his family, that the only true loves of his life thus far have been his family and that rusted-out bag of bolts he calls a car, and that if you're lucky enough to make it into his tiny circle of friends he will be fiercely, almost frighteningly loyal. All of which lines up with the nearly-Spartan inner sanctum of Dean's room - a twin bed, rickety desk with ancient laptop, and nearly every surface covered in stacks of books. _

_Cas presses his lips together and steps into the room, wanting to commit every second to memory even though he fears he won't be able to recall any of it by the morning. The floor is bare, scuffed wooden boards that squeak under their feet, and a tiny bathroom is half-hidden behind a pocket door at the far end of the room. A boombox, some giant '90s relic,_ _sits in one corner, a stack of CDs piled on top of it and Cas is yearning to flip through them, or skim over the broken spines of the books piled beside the tiny bed, but Dean doesn't even turn on the overhead light._

_He shuts the door behind Cas, plunging them both into darkness with only the sounds of Dean's rustled clothing between them as he tugs off his jeans and t-shirt, fumbling in a trunk at the foot of his bed for a second before finding a spare blanket and pillow. He steps past Cas, a brush of warm bare skin that makes the hair on Cas' arm stand on end._

"_Bed's there, dude, and I just washed the sheets last weekend, so you should be good to go. See you in the morning?"_

_Cas nods for a second before remembering that Dean can't really see him. He wants to tell Dean that sleeping on the hard floor is unnecessary, that Cas would be more than happy to share the bed, but even with the tremendous amount of liquor in his system he can't find the nerve. So Cas just toes off his shoes and shrugs out of his trench coat silently, folding it primly at the foot of the bed before sliding between soft sheets that smell like Old Spice and whiskey._

"_Thank you for letting me stay with you, Dean."_

_Dean doesn't answer beyond the deep, slightly nasal exhale from the floor that tells Cas he's already fast asleep._

_And suddenly Cas can't fight it anymore, the itch in his fingertips to reach out for Dean, the vast chasm of need for human touch yawning wide in his chest and threatening to swallow him whole. Gently, Cas reaches down, tracing his fingertips lightly over the soft warmth of the inside of Dean's arm. Dean shifts and for a fraction of a second Cas' heart stops as he tries to think of a way to explain his touch, but Dean's still asleep. His hand just reaches up to clumsily capture Cas', his calloused fingers winding haphazardly through Cas' soft ones, pale and grasping in the silver moonlight._

* * *

"How do you like your burgers?"

It's muted through the condo's walls, but Cas is pretty sure he would recognize that voice from two states over. And he can feel his stomach flipping at at the response, high and feminine and playful.

"Still moo-ing."

"That's my girl," Dean chuckles, and Cas has moved to his back door now, sliding it open quietly and watching over the short railing dividing their decks to see the smoke rise from Dean's barbecue, his girlfriend sitting a plate with lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and onion on the table on their small outdoor table. Cas wants to tell her to bring honey mustard, because it's Dean's favorite and he'll never love a burger without it, but it's not his place.

He belongs here, with the dark and the quiet and the bourbon he pours himself, swirling it around the ice in his glass. He settles down on the floor to eavesdrop, haunted by the past he lost and the bleak future he's earned.

Cas doesn't make it up to his bed that night. Instead, he passes out on the cold tile of his kitchen floor, his ear still pressed to the screen of his back door, the ghost of a beloved voice rumbling through his dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I wish I could buy giant confetti canons full of love and glitter for all of you. Seriously, just imagine that I'm walking around with you all day, showering you with random bursts of sparkly affection, because that's how I feel every time one of you reviews or follows or favorites. I'm just dancing around, covered in love and glitter...

Which I suddenly realize makes me sound a lot like a stripper, only, you know, without all the cash and sexiness. Huh.

* * *

Dean puts his travel mug in the cup holder and smooths his tie under the seat belt he never fails to wear anymore. He starts up the Impala, tapping his fingers to the final chords of "Kashmir" that pour from the radio as he idles in his driveway for a long moment, waiting to see if the engine's rumble has stirred his neighbor. He'll take anything at this point, a light flipping on or a slight twitch of the heavy curtains cloaking Castiel's windows, the tiniest sign that Dean's presence has had some effect on him. There's nothing.

In fact, the only confirmation he's had in the past two weeks that Cas actually does live next door and the whole window-breaking incident wasn't just some fucked-up acid trip that Dean's confused with reality was the report from Bud the Contractor, who told him that he'd fixed Cas' window better than new, as requested, and that he'd seemed "a little strange."

That made Dean smile, just thinking about the thousand tiny awkward things that Cas does every day in his attempts to act like mundane people. "You're too special of a snowflake," Dean had told him once, his lips dancing across the sensitive skin under Cas' ear as he pouted and tried to pull out of Dean's arms.

"I'd like to stop being special, then," Cas whined.

"Not even a little bit possible." Dean can still feel the heat that burned through him at those words, the press of Cas against him in the dark shadows of Harvelle's back booth.

He shakes off the memory and sighs, putting the car in reverse. It doesn't matter how often he relives the memories. The only one that's relevant now is the final one, the crumpled note covered in Cas' cramped handwriting telling Dean that he was gone for good.

Lisa waves at him, smiling and sleepy, from their front window. Dean waves back and eases out of the driveway, turning his focus to his sales calls for the day.

Dean has somewhere to be now, _someone _he has to be. He's the Northeast Sales Representative for one of the country's biggest truck lines, tasked with finding freight to keep the trucks moving in and out of his territory. It's exhausting and stressful and never ending, but it's also what Dean asked for back in school. Dependable. Well-paying. Complete with benefits and suits and respectability.

It doesn't matter what he wants anymore. He has responsibilities. He has a five-year plan.

And nowhere in it does it say, "Fuck everything all to hell because fate's a sadistic bitch that's using Cas to screw with your head."

The Impala growls beneath him as it roars away.

* * *

_It's immediate. All-consuming, overwhelming, and probably bat-shit insane, but that's how these things go sometimes (or so Dean's heard). _

_Somehow, Cas and he manage to entirely skip over the uncomfortable dance of new-friends-who-text-a-few-times-a-week-and-consta ntly-have-to-find-parties-or-study-groups-or-other -increasingly-random-and-ridiculous-excuses-to-spe nd-time-together and move straight into assuming they have standing plans after class every Wednesday night. And then it's more than just Wednesdays. It's movies on rainy Saturday afternoons and early morning grocery runs because Cas stayed over and Dean's out of Captain Crunch. And then it's just assumed that Cas will help Dean cram for his economics exam all night by supplying endless coffee and back rubs and that Dean will make sure that Cas has a reserved seat and comped bar tab every night he's working._

_Because, for students who met in class, they spend an inordinately small fraction of their time there. Cas hates going out in public, just in general, and wasting time in boring classes specifically, so he skips more often than not. Dean has a better attendance record but a worse attitude, actively resenting being forced to jump through hoops like a trained dog just so he can get a decent paying job in a couple of years and be some dick-headed boss' ass clown._

_So, whenever possible, they just avoid campus. They teach each other instead, holed up in Dean's room. _

_Cas' literature studies are intense and filled with more reading assignments than Dean thought was humanly possible, so every time Cas groans and rubs at his eyes after hours skimming over a book in the dim light, Dean takes it from him and clears his throat, picking up where Cas left off. Cas always leans in close, his head resting on Dean's shoulder, claiming that he needs to see the sentence structure in order to learn how to write properly. Dean can feel Cas' every exhale, warm and soft against his neck, and it's so distracting that he keeps losing his place, Cas chuckling and reaching over to point where Dean left off, his fingertips skimming across the page and down over Dean's wrist. _

_Dean knows the whole thing is just a bullshit excuse to cuddle but, strangely, finds that he doesn't care. Because not even Dean's supreme skills at self-delusion can continue to hide that he's falling for this messy-haired guy with the ridiculous voice and terrible fashion sense. His whole body hums when they're together; he loves the smell of Cas' shampoo on Dean's pillow after he sleeps over; he can't keep his eyes off the curve of Cas' neck or the sliver of skin that peeks between his shirt and boxers when Cas is fast asleep, his eyelashes dark against his pale cheeks. _

_And Dean's never felt anything like this for anyone before – man, woman, animal, or mineral. Cas is an independent species, special and unique, with none of the normal laws applicable. Dean tries not to look at it closer than that. He's happy, he's complete, and so what if he likes it when Cas' hand brushes his own or when his body curves around Dean's, hogging the bed after late-night study sessions. For Dean, Cas supersedes normal ideas about attraction and appropriateness. Dean wants him there, Dean _needs _him there, and that's the end of it._

_For six tension-filled weeks, anyway, until a Tuesday night when Dean's so filled with pent-up frustration and a thousand tiny unsaid things that he doesn't keep track of how many times he refills Bobby's whiskey glass. It's a rookie mistake and he knows he fucked up the second the old man starts swiping at his eyes, mumbling nearly-incoherent reminiscences about his long-dead wife. Dean's heard it all before, of course – the way she always looked out for Bobby, making him pies and taking care of him, how she died in a car accident before Bobby felt like he was able to really tell her how much she meant to him. _

_But Bobby's broken, bitter regret finally cracks something in Dean, some final bit of armor or fear, he's not even sure. All he knows is that he's done waiting. He's done hiding from himself like a little bitch, and he's never going to end up crying to a bartender over what could have been. _

_He's Dean Motherfucking Winchester, goddammit, and he's taking control._

_It's a quarter to two and Bobby and Ash are the only ones left in the bar, so Dean just tosses them the keys and tells them to lock up when they're through. He jogs through the back kitchen and takes the stairs to his room two at a time, the butterflies in his stomach strong enough to make him feel weightless, as if they are beating hard enough to lift his entire body. His door's unlocked and Cas is already sprawled out on his bed, too engrossed in _Dead Souls_ to look up. If he had, he would have noticed that Dean doesn't head to the shower like he always does, even though he smells like smoke and beer, and doesn't kick off his shoes or say hello or make sure the door closes behind him. He's just across the room in an instant, his eyes locked on Cas as he clambers onto the bed and takes the book from his hands, desperately trying to see in Cas' surprised confusion if this is alright, if this is something that Cas wants. _

_And then he thinks, fuck it, I'll find out soon enough. He slides a hand along the side of Cas' neck and pulls him forward, his mouth hard and hot as he parts Cas' lips with his own. _

_It's like that time he finally took Sam to Disney World last spring break. They were on Splash Mountain and there was this perfect moment when they were perched at the peak of the big drop, gravity beginning to suck the boat out from beneath them, when Dean raised his arms in the air and laughed, terrified but wide-eyed, electric and alive and free. Kissing Cas is that feeling times a thousand, perfect and petrifying, brilliant and beautiful and breathtaking, and Dean can't imagine anything could ever be better. _

_A long second passes until Dean's senses begin to come back to him and he realizes, with growing horror, that although Cas is pliable and pressed against him, his mouth is still. Totally unresponsive. Dean wrenches himself back and retreats to the edge of the bed, embarrassed and full of a hundred different apologies, already cursing his stupid hormones for running away with the only truly great thing in his entire fucking life. _

_Cas' eyes flit open, deep and dark as the ocean. They're confused and searching, scouring Dean's face like it holds some answer of grave importance. Dean takes a deep, shaking breath, but he doesn't have any words. Cas is the one who always knows what to say, who can make language beautiful and meaningful. All Dean has is the physical. So he reaches across the blanket to cover Cas' hand with his own, tracing his thumb in tiny circles over the blue veins on the inside of Cas' wrist, trying to make his fingers say, "I'm sorry," and, "You're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me." _

_And, "Please don't leave. I don't know how I'm going to stay away from your mouth now that I know that you taste like peppermint and rain, like _home,_ but if you don't want me I will do anything to keep you as a friend."_

_Apparently, Cas has learned more than just English literature that semester. He's also somehow become fluent in Dean, because Cas seems to understand everything that he hasn't been able to say. Cas' face clears, a smile breaking like sunrise over his features, and Dean finally thinks he can speak again but doesn't get a single sound out. Cas curls his fingers into fists around the lapels of Dean's jacket, hauling him in against Cas' body and moving his mouth over Dean's, eager and hungry and drowning. _

_Dean doesn't question it, doesn't dare, just wraps his arms around Castiel's back and returns the enthusiasm. For someone so reserved and proper in his public life, Cas is reckless now, his hands sliding up to Dean's face, thumbs tracing across his stubble, fingers trailing down the sensitive skin of his neck. Dean pushes Cas down on his back, straddling his hips as he sucks Cas' lower lip between his teeth, licking at the inside of it. Cas rewards him with a moan, this tiny sound of pleasure so pure that Dean immediately resolves to make it his life's mission to replicate as often as possible. _

_He slips his hands under the hem of Cas' shirt, running over the warm skin that's taunted him every time Cas has bent over or stretched since that first night in the bar. His thumbs press into the dips beside Cas' narrow hipbones before he slides his hands up, feeling the lean lines of Cas' chest, the hardened peaks of his nipples. His mouth moves from Cas' perpetually chapped lips to the stretch of skin beneath his ear, kissing and sucking and licking his way down his throat as Cas' breath speeds, his pulse pounding through the artery under Dean's skillful mouth._

_The world has narrowed to this – heat and flesh and the smell of Cas surrounding him – and Dean is shaking, his fingers trembling as they skim over the fine bones of Cas' slim build, his breath ragged as it drags over the lump in his throat. It's too perfect, it's too much, and as Cas reclaims his mouth and swallows down the sob he almost let spill out, Dean realizes that there's no coming back from this._

_He's in love. Completely, enduringly, undeniably._

_Cas slows, breaking their kiss for a moment as his eyelids drift up, those ridiculous navy eyes an inch away from Dean and reflecting everything he's feeling back at him._

_Dean sighs, a tiny exhale that silently carries the first prayer of his entire life. _

_'Please, dear God, don't let me fuck this up.'_

* * *

Dean's last appointment of the day was dinner with clients at some pretentious-as-fuck restaurant where he had to pay over $300 for portions roughly the size of shot glasses, so it's long past dark when he pulls into his driveway. He's exhausted and starving, ready for a hot shower and frozen pizza, but he hesitates when he hears tires crunch in the road behind him.

A cab pulls up to the curb next door and stops, the trunk popping open. Curious, Dean dawdles, slowly collecting his coat and briefcase, wandering down to the mailbox even though he knows Lisa would have collected the mail hours ago.

Finally, a man steps out. Short, with a forehead that's been expanded exponentially by hair loss, and Dean vaguely recognizes him as Cas' brother, the only one of the vast Novak clan that Cas tolerates on very rare occasions (but still kind of hates). Dean keeps staring as he tries to come up with the guy's name.

Cas supplies it for him a moment later, wrenching open his door and stepping onto the porch barefoot, wearing jeans and a faded gray t-shirt. "Gabriel." It's a greeting, sort of, but it's the same tone of voice Castiel uses when he discovers something smelly on the bottom of his shoe.

Dean only met Gabriel once, when he showed up at Cas' apartment unannounced and waited for a day and a half for Cas to come home. He didn't, of course, having essentially moved in with Dean at that point, and Gabriel finally gave up and tracked them down after class. Cas wasn't any happier to see him back then.

"There's my favorite brother!" Dean can hear the sarcasm dripping from Gabe's voice and it makes his hands clench, nails biting crescent-shaped indents across his palms. He'd forgotten what a giant bag of dicks Cas' family generally was, or how much he'd had to restrain himself from inflicting physical pain on Gabe the last time he'd shown up and mocked Cas. Dean takes an unconscious half-step toward him, fiery-tempered and protective, before he remembers that he no longer has a place in any of Cas' domestic dramas.

So he swallows his possessiveness, a hard pit that burns in his stomach as he slinks through the shadows to his front door, flipping through his key ring to find the right one. Cas' eyes flick to his once, shining and desperate and something else, some emotion that Dean used to be able to read. But then Gabriel's shoes make the porch stairs squeak behind Dean and the moment breaks; Cas turns back to his brother and Dean slips into his house.

The house is dark. Lisa has already gone to bed, probably has an early appointment. But the night is mild and the windows are cracked open, voices from next door carrying in easily on the breeze. Dean settles in on the couch and opens his laptop, pretending he's catching up on email and not intentionally spying.

"Wasn't that your little boyfriend I just saw? The asshole with the foul mouth and drinking problem?"

Dean's jaw clenches. He's regretting not slamming Gabriel's head into the pavement the second he arrived.

Cas ignores it. "I thought I made it perfectly clear when I wouldn't give you my address that I wanted to be left alone, Gabriel."

"But you're _not_ actually alone, little bro. You have about a billion brothers and sisters, all waiting to hear from you. We care. _I _care."

Cas snorts. He must be physically blocking Gabe from coming into the house. "You care about getting the rights to my book when I die, Gabe."

Silence. Dean can picture it, Gabriel smirking and shrugging and not bothering to deny it. _Son of a bitch._

"You gonna make me sleep on your porch? Or should I go next door and see if good old Dean-o will let me bunk with him? Maybe one Novak's as good as another..."

Cas sighs so loudly that it's practically a growl, but the door squeaks on its hinges as he opens it further. "Fine. Come in. But I'm going to need another drink."

Footsteps. The door slamming shut, voices turned to barely audible mumbles. Dean sighs and heads to the kitchen in search of the whiskey, murmuring out loud even though he knows Cas can't hear him.

"Me too, Cas."

* * *

Three hours pass, filled with barbed comments about how Cas was the only one to inherit their father's money and thinly-veiled insults about how he's wasted every opportunity he's ever been given. Cas endures it all through a steadily-thickening drunken haze until midnight, when he gives up and goes to bed.

He lies in the spinning dark of his room until he hears Gabriel close the door of the guest bedroom across the hall and then waits another twenty minutes before sliding out from the sheets, praying that he can make it down the hallway and stairs without any floorboards creaking. He reaches the door in miraculous silence and decides that he may need to rethink that whole "There is no God" concept.

Cas isn't even sure where he's going when he eases the front door open, slipping into the warm night in nothing but his boxer shorts. All he knows is that he can't stay under the same roof as Gabe for one more second without cracking open and spilling something about what's wrong with him, about the festering shards of a heart that he's been trying to live with for the past eight years. As irritating as the selfish bastard is, Gabriel is family, and he has his ways of worming into Cas' life.

Cas gently shuts the door behind him and lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The air smells like rain and grass, fresh enough to help sober him up as he walks to the rocking chair he put on the front porch when he moved in years ago and has yet to actually sit in.

"Hey, Cas," a familiar voice rumbles through the darkness. Cas is proud of himself, he doesn't jump or trip up, just folds into the chair and casually looks over at the glowing tip of a cigarette, seemingly floating in the darkness next door.

"Hello, Dean."

Cas' eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to see Dean exhale, a slow stream of smoke that floats lazily toward the amber streetlight at the end of the block. "I was just wondering if you ever came out here."

Cas knows, with that tiny bit of vulnerability, that Dean's been drinking, but he doesn't mind. Drunk Dean was always the only kind that Cas felt like he could really touch, really understand. So he takes a risk and drags his chair across the empty space between them, settling down on the line that divides his property from Lisa's.

"Not usually," he admits, wanting to offer Dean the same amount of honesty that he's been given. Dean takes another drag, studiously avoiding Castiel's gaze.

"Just hiding out from your family, then?"

Cas nods.

"That's too bad," Dean finally says, tossing the cigarette butt to the worn wooden boards and crushing it under his toe. He's still in suit pants and shiny leather shoes, his white dress shirt rumpled from the day's wear, the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He's beautiful, because he's Dean and Cas doesn't believe he could ever be anything less than breathtaking, but he's weary. Aged and haunted, the dark circles under his eyes caused by more than just the low lighting.

He pulls out another unfiltered Camel, holding it between his lips as he flicks open a silver Zippo (Cas wishes it was daylight so he could check for the engraving, see if it's the same one he gave Dean for his 21st birthday) and inhales. Dean shifts, angling toward Cas and handing him the lit cigarette. It's such a familiar gesture, intimate and perfected over the hundreds of times it's happened before, that Cas doesn't even think about telling Dean that he doesn't smoke, never really did. He just raises it to his mouth and breathes in, relishing the feel of the warm filter that links Dean's mouth with his.

Dean sits back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front of him, gaze soft and unfocused. "I come out here most nights after work. It'd be nice to have company more often."

Castiel's breath hitches, because if this was _his _Dean, the version that was 22 and swimming in bravado, this would be tantamount to a plea, practically begging Cas to be a part of Dean's new life. It's a step toward everything Cas hasn't dared to allow himself to want since the day Dean broke his window or the thousands of days that passed before that and, _oh, God,_ he really does not want to fuck this up.

He's grateful for the cigarette now, occupying his mouth long enough for Cas to quiet his nerves, force his voice to come out as deep and even as ever.

"Then I'll have to make a habit out of it."

Dean nods and even smiles, sort of, a few of his teeth shining white and wet in the pale light.

"Good. That'd be good, Cas."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** This one deviates from the established pattern a bit because the chapter turned into a massive beast that I lost control of, so I had to split it into three separate parts. But here's what that means for you – extra long sections! Another update coming soon! More scenes and dialogue and descriptive-y things!

(Why don't I maintain even a basic understanding of the English language when I'm writing these stupid author's notes? It's ridiculous.)

Oh, and also – flashback sexy goodness coming your way in just a day or two. So hang on – I'm gonna earn that explicit rating, I promise. :)

* * *

"Where's your friend, Dean?"

Jessica, so far along that she's legitimately waddling now, rests one hand on her swollen belly and braces the other against the top of the kitchen table as she lowers herself into the chair. She smiles over at Dean, her face such an over-the-top mask of total innocence that he knows Sam has started to suspect something just from his one interaction with Castiel.

Dean glares at Sam for a half-second, his brother failing to hide his smirk until he gets up from the kitchen table under the pretense of getting another beer.

"Dean has a friend?" Lisa asks, happy and oblivious.

"Not really," Dean answers, because there's no way out of it now so he may as well spin the story the way he wants it. "Sammy broke the neighbor's window when I moved in and it turns out that it's a guy I went to college with."

He wants to keep talking, to say that it was no big deal, he barely knew the guy, anything to throw Sam the Sensitive Asshole Who Always Wants to Talk About Dean's Motherfucking Feelings off the scent, but the words stick in his throat like dry cereal. "It's not a big deal," he mumbles finally, lamely.

"Well, of course we should invite him over!" Lisa bubbles, already headed to the front door. "I mean, that's like fate or kismet or something, Dean. You move all the way from Florida and there's an old friend right next door? It's like asking the universe to smite you if you ignore that."

Dean kicks Sam under the table, hard enough that he's sure the fucker will have a bruise for a week. It still doesn't wipe the smug smile off his stupid face.

Dean had only just found a way to reach out to Cas – drunken, barely half thought-out and utterly confusing – the night before. The last thing he wants is Cas feeling like he was only testing the waters for social acceptability before throwing him into a family dinner where everyone knows varying degrees of the truth between them.

But as much as Dean wants to deny it, the melodramatic moose and his meddling wife have a point. He could stop Lisa, easily, tell her that the guy was weird or that he didn't want to have him over, wouldn't even have to really give a reason, but he doesn't. He lets her glide out the front door in her pretty little yellow sundress, listens to the distant trill of her voice and Cas' answering rumble, his heart in his throat until Lisa reappears a minute later, flushed and bouncing.

"He said he'd be delighted. Actually said that, 'I'd be delighted, Ms. Braeden.' Who talks like that?" She flits about the kitchen, collecting everything necessary for an additional place setting. "He'll be over in just a minute. Why didn't you tell me you knew him, Dean?"

Dean can feel four very knowing eyes on him and can't stop the slow spread of pink across his cheeks, his gaze studying the knots in the tabletop like there's going to be a quiz on the mathematical equations that define the swirls. "I guess I forgot about it," he offers, his voice too quiet and husky.

Lisa doesn't notice, fussing with the tableware one last time before going back to the stove, checking on the paella.

The doorbell rings and every muscle in Dean's body tightens, his eyes focused on the narrow hall leading to the front door.

"I'll get it," Lisa offers.

Jess reaches over, covering Dean's shaking hand with hers for a second before squeezing, hard. Her eyes are soft and understanding, her expression a near perfect copy of Sam's from eight years ago after Dean drove all night to reach him, stuttering and full-on panicking as he finally makes his life-altering declaration, only to find that everything was going to be fine all along. Sam, pitying and loving and trying not to laugh, had just said, "I already know, Dean. And of course it's okay. I love you, the only thing I care about is if you're happy."

His wife is silently reminding Dean of all of it now, and he can't even find the words to thank her. So he just squeezes back and hopes she gets it.

* * *

Castiel has no fucking clue what's going on.

The pretty brunette that Dean loves now – called Lisa, he learned – showed up at his door and asked him to a dinner party like she had no idea that he'd spent two years fucking her boyfriend, knowing Dean more intimately than she possibly could since he'd been _inside _him. So Cas said yes.

Jesus, he hasn't left his property in nearly a year. What excuse was he going to use? A sudden need to buy produce?

And he feels like hell when he shows up, half-drunk as always and wearing two-day-old jeans and his least smelly shirt, which he belatedly remembers used to actually _belong _to Dean, in front of Dean's beloved brother, said brother's glowing and hugely-pregnant wife, the ruggedly handsome Dean Winchester himself, and his perfect girlfriend.

_Last chance to win him back? Yeah, I see you flying out the window. Nice to dream that you existed for a while. Goodbye._

Cas takes a seat next to Dean, who's at the head of the table, like this is something he remembers how to do, having dinner with strangers and acting like he belongs. The blonde across the table smiles at him, bright and knowing, as if she understands how completely out of his wheelhouse Castiel actually is. He smiles back, hand shaking as he reaches out for the napkin folded at his place setting, spreading it over his lap as he mentally chants, _keep it together, keep it together._

"I was so happy to hear that Dean knows you, Castiel." Lisa is pleasant and lovely and charming, of course, and Cas wishes the floor would open up beneath him and swallow him whole. "I've been looking for a way to get to know the man who shares my porch, but everything I thought of just sounded lame."

"Yes," Cas replies, his eyes flicking to Dean's for a second, finding them bright and curious and attentive, before looking back at Lisa. "I've wanted to meet you as well. Same problem."

Sam, bless his giant ass, enthusiastically says something generic and welcoming before he goes to check on the food, deeming it ready and spooning it onto their individual plates. Cas fucks around with his napkin, twisting it around the blunt edges of his nail and watching Jessica. He's not sure what it is but something about her assures him that she's on his side.

And then there's steaming, home-cooked food in front of him for the first time in Cas-seriously-has-no-idea-how-long, and for a moment he doesn't care that it was prepared by the person who took his place as the greatest love in Dean's heart. He's too happy feeling normal. He's surrounded by a family, the room full of love and laughter and inside jokes, and Cas wants to draw it in through his very pores, to absorb enough of this feeling to sustain him through the lonely months on his side of the condo's dividing wall.

They dig in, Dean the first to raise his face and mumble around the food in his mouth to thank Lisa for her hard work.

Cas, on the other hand, waits until he swallows. Some manners are so drilled in that they become instinct, no matter how dusty with disuse.

"Yes, thank you, Lisa. This is the best meal I've had in quite some time."

Lisa beams back at Cas and Dean smiles at them both, small and private, as his knees widen and the right one settles in next to Cas'. It's warm and familiar and more human contact than Cas has had in far longer than he wishes to admit. The tight feeling he always carries in his chest loosens, his shoulders relax a fraction, and he lets the stale breath of his prison home ease out of his lungs.

Sam starts talking about work, a pro bono case defending some poor postal worker who got fired because he broke his arm saving a woman on his route from a mugger and wasn't able to work for six weeks, and Cas raises his eyes to Dean's, trying to tell him the words he can't give voice to.

_You were right; he is special. _

_All the sacrifice was worth it. _

_Be proud, Dean, you helped raise someone amazing. _

Dean looks away, scratching at the back of his neck with an absent smile, but Cas is sure he saw the appreciation in his eyes.

Cas manages to behave himself through dinner, pretending to be polite and normal and completely avoiding telling everyone who he used to be, what he used to do. They ask the usual questions, like, "What do you do for a living?" And Cas says that he used to be a freelance writer (true) and that he now lives off an inheritance while he decides what to do next (also true, but a stretch, since the only future plan he has is to slowly ruin his liver until he dies.)

"You should give Castiel a tour of the house, Dean," Jessica says after they've cleared the plates from the table, something in her expression hinting at mischievous.

"Yeah," Sam chimes in. "He got to see what your belongings looked like in _his_ house since you crashed them through his window – it's only fair to show him how they're set up in here."

Sam ignores the obscene gesture Dean directs his way, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder as he goes to help Lisa clean up. Jessica claims that her ankles are too swollen to tour a house she's seen a hundred times before, so it ends up being just Dean and Cas wandering awkwardly through rooms Cas finds both strangely familiar – the floor plan is a mirror of his own home, after all – and yet utterly foreign.

Cas can see signs of Dean here and there – his wallet and keys sitting on a table in the entryway, a stack of classic rock vinyl next to the stereo. But that's pretty much it. The place is warm and welcoming in a generic way, all hardwood floors and overstuffed furniture with landscape paintings on the wall, but it's decor that Castiel's sure Lisa set up when she moved in last year.

He wonders where Dean really _lives_ these days.

They wind up in Dean's small home office, Cas' hand resting lightly on the leather desk chair and it's like the cigarette all over again – an object that's a proxy for Dean. Dean has touched the chair, now Cas does. He can believe for a moment that they're just one tiny degree of separation from one another.

Dean sighs and rubs at the corner of his mouth. "I'm sorry, man, I had no idea this was happening. I would never just toss you into this situation blindly."

Cas looks away. He'd assumed so – it was one thing for Dean to want secret conversations in the dark of night. It was another entirely to bring him into the heart of his home life.

"It's fine, Dean. I had a pleasant evening. Your family is as lovely as you always said."

"Thanks." Silence for a moment, uncomfortable. Cas can barely believe that they'd been so easy together once. "Yours has taken off already, I take it?"

Cas nods. "Gabriel left early this morning, thankfully."

What he doesn't mention is that Gabe woke up before the sun, full of apologies and seemingly genuine affection. He'd packed and woken Cas gently to say that he was going to give him his space. "I'm sorry I'm so hard on you, Castiel. It's just, I really do worry."

He'd reached out for a hug but Cas shrank away, so he settled for a gentle cuff on the chin. "You've just got to get a little better at handling this whole _life_ thing, little brother." Gabe's eyes turned meaningfully to the far wall, the one adjoining Dean's home. "I want you to be happy."

Cas held it together long enough to see Gabe off, then collapsed into a miserable ball of tears until shortly before Lisa had shown up, his brother's honesty having left him feeling unbearably exposed.

But Dean doesn't need to know any of that.

Instead, Cas turns to scan the bookshelves that line the walls, filled with a random collection of car parts and office supplies, recent pictures of Sam and Jessica and ancient ones of Dean's parents. The very top shelf holds books and there, tucked into the far corner, is a copy of _Please Don't Give Me Up _by Castiel Novak_._ It's the hardback edition, battered and worn like Dean's read it a hundred times, but Cas puts that thought out of his mind.

_He probably bought it used, that's why it looks like that. _

Dean follows his eyes and smiles, small and sad and a little guilty, like he's not sure if the sight of the book makes either of them happy or heartbroken. "It's an incredible book, Cas, really. Everything they said about it was true."

Castiel swallows, hard. Finally, _finally, _the review that matters, and his heart swells. He lets his eyes close for a quick second, savoring the sensation, and then forces himself back to the present.

"I'm surprised you keep it around."

Dean's smile widens, his mouth crooked and his eyes sparkling. "Of course I did. I mean, thanks to you I'm kind of a star, right?"

"That's what I mean. If someone saw that you had it, and knew that we were..._friends_, once...they might be able to piece together who inspired it."

Dean closes the distance between them, standing so near that Cas can feel the warmth radiating off his skin, see the freckles sprinkled across his cheekbones, smell his familiar mix of Old Spice and leather. Dean waits, making sure that he has Cas' gaze before he speaks, his voice earnest and laced with regret, or maybe an apology.

"I haven't worried about that in a really long time, Cas."

Which somehow makes it all worse, because it's either a lie to make Cas feel better, or, worse, it's the truth. It means that Dean's fear wasn't some flaw intrinsic to his personality, unavoidable and perpetually fatal to their relationship. It was just something he needed to outgrow. And Cas took off before he could straighten himself out.

Cas turns away and moves past Dean to the dark doorway.

"Not long enough," he murmurs, so low that he's not sure Dean even heard it.


	5. Chapter 4, part B

_Summer comes, and with it, hurricane season. _

_The blonde ass-bag on the news says this storm will be "one for the record books," and then uses the hackneyed phrase "hunker down" at least thirty-seven times in a half-hour broadcast. Dean watches the report on his laptop early on the morning of the storm, half-asleep under the quiet whir of his fan while Cas is gone to take his final for Early American Lit. It's one of the last classes held before campus closes down – 'hunkers down,' Dean thinks, trying to get into the spirit. _

_So naturally, Dean's response to all the hurricane hoopla is to run out and immediately stock up on a wide variety of liquor and lubricants, double-checking the condom supply in the bedside table. _

_By the time Cas comes in, a surly kitten soaked to the bone by the storm's outermost bands, Dean has his room illuminated with a dozen candles scavenged from the bar downstairs, champagne chilling in a silver bucket, and fresh sheets on the bed. Dean Martin is even crooning from the stereo. Dean hates it, of course, thinks it's schmaltzy and too rom-com-ish, but he knows it's one of Cas' favorites. _

_(Cas has never told him and Dean would never guess, but it's really just because they share a name. Cas feels like it's his duty to love anyone who has something in common with _his_ Dean.) _

_Dean smiles, wide and enthusiastic. "Hurricane party, baby!"_

_Cas' only response is to grumble as water drips from his untucked shirttails. Dean laughs to himself and strides across the room, quickly peeling the wet layers off Cas' skin and replacing them with his warm mouth, kissing away the rain and trying to distract him from his hurricane fear. _

_"But Dean, they said we should evacuate," Cas protests, fingers wrapping around the short strands of Dean's soft hair and trying to tug him away from his neck. _

_"Only if we lived in a trailer or a low-lying area. This bar has been here forever, and we're on the second story." Dean's mouth travels lower, his tongue dipping into the hollow where Cas' collarbones meet before skipping down across his bare chest, brushing tantalizingly over his nipple. _

_"It's a category three," Cas manages to say, though he already lacks his earlier conviction. _

_"I've ridden out a half dozen of these." Dean's on his knees now, lips ghosting over the tiny hairs beneath Cas' navel as his nimble fingers whip open the belt buckle. "Just think of it as an excuse to enjoy the time off," he pops open the top button of Cas' jeans, "and the lack of distractions." He tugs the zipper down and Cas' jeans pool around his ankles, Dean finally quiet as he finds better things to do with his mouth._

_Cas threads his fingers through Dean's hair, tugging at the roots and groaning as Dean licks a long line on the underside of his shaft, his eyes bright and locked on Cas' as he reaches the tip and wraps his lips around him. Cas is already rock hard and Dean hums with the small pleasure of knowing that he's good at this, that his lips were made to be a tight ring of wet around Cas, his cheeks slightly concave as he sucks, drawing his mouth back to swirl his tongue around the head. _

_But then it all goes sideways as Cas uses his last coherent thought before the sex haze grows overwhelming to tug impatiently at Dean's shoulder, hauling him back up to eye level. _

"_If you're going to insist on making me endanger my life by staying here, you're going to make it worth it."_

_Dean licks his already-wet lips and smirks. "I thought that's what I was doing, Cas."_

_But Cas has that burning in his blue eyes, like they're lit from within by some sort of holy fire, and Dean's seen that look enough times to know that Cas has something in mind that Dean will not be able to refuse. _

"_No, I mean _really_ worth it."_

_Cas pushes Dean down on the bed and crawls on top of him, his hands making quick work of Dean's shirt buttons. He's stripping Dean's clothes off like their naked flesh will somehow stop the storm, like heat and sex and love are enough to affect weather patterns. _

_And then their clothes are in a haphazard pile on the floor, the candlelight dancing over their golden summer skin, already damp with sweat in the humid room. Legs tangled together, Cas kisses Dean fiercely as his hand circles to Dean's ass, a finger running along the cleft, pressing and stroking suggestively until Dean finally catches on. He pulls back and stares, stunned, the mask of confidence totally gone from those green eyes. _

_He's silent for a long time, trying to think of some quip, something clever to hide behind, but he can't. All he's got is raw honesty. _

"_I'm scared, Cas."_

_Cas' eyes are dark, the pupils having nearly swallowed the blue. Like he's a fathomless canyon that Dean will fall through forever if he's not careful. _

"_Don't be. I love you. If we try this and you don't enjoy it, we will stop. Immediately."_

_They've had sex before, of course, but it's always been a version of it where Dean is on his knees behind Cas, their bodies curved together as Dean pushes inside. That was somewhat within the realm of his experience - being the one in the driver's seat, so to speak._

_And Dean has to admit to himself that he's been curious, at least a little, since the first time he saw himself sliding into Cas' body and heard that groan of satisfaction, saw the trembling in his shoulders as the sensation racked him. A part of Dean has wanted to know what that feels like, if it's painful or terrifying or incredible, or some combination of the above. _

_But mostly it freaks him out, being such a different act from anything he's ever done or ever thought he would do. Then Cas' finger presses across his perineum and travels north to his – well, Dean doesn't know any better word for it than 'hole' – and he feels Cas' fingertip dip inside and gasps._

"_Trust me, Dean. I would _never _hurt you."_

_Dean knows with that husky promise that he's going to do this, and a thrill zings along the length of his spine, his breath catching in his chest. He tries to play it off with a laugh._

"_So should we have some kind of safe word or something? I yell 'petunia' when I can't take it anymore or..."_

_Cas shakes his head, presses his lips to Dean's temple. "It's just us, Dean. You can just ask me to stop."_

_Dean nods and swallows, lacing his fingers through Cas' and squeezing. "Okay."_

_Cas takes control, pinning Dean's wrists to the bed as he covers every inch of his chest with wet kisses, working his way south with excruciating slowness. He swipes his tongue over Dean's nipples, leaving trails of hot wet that he blows across until Dean shivers, and dances his fingertips across the ridges of muscle in Dean's stomach. His teeth graze over Dean's hipbone, his tongue tracing down the hard line that runs from there to the base of Dean's cock. Everything about Cas is gentle, every touch oh-so-light as he kisses the insides of Dean's thighs and gently massages his balls, his long fingers soft and teasing... until he locks eyes with Dean and smirks. _

_And then Dean's head is slamming back into the pillow, Cas suddenly ferocious as he wraps a firm hand and hot mouth around Dean, pumping and sucking and groaning and making these obscene wet sounds until he's got Dean so tense with anticipation that he's trembling under Cas' hands._

_And this is all completely new; lying here vulnerable as he's spread open before Cas, with Cas' mouth seemingly everywhere as his hand slides beneath him and touches parts of Dean he hasn't even explored himself. It's Cas' fingers, cool and slick with lube, that begin sliding in and out of Dean's body, shallow and slow at first and then sinking deeper, gliding every now and then over something buried within Dean that feels like he's setting fire to his body from the inside out in the best possible way. _

_Cas' free hand never stops running over Dean and he's murmuring soft declarations of love, soothing as if Dean is an animal frightened by the coming storm, and it's working. Dean finds himself getting into this, the tension leaving his muscles under Cas' skillful touch. He knows how to provide the perfect mix of pleasure to make the pain bearable and Dean realizes with surprise that Cas is good at this - better, more patient than Dean – making it feel intimate and intense and incredible. It makes Dean wonder how many times he has done this before, how many other men he's had under those hands. _

_Other couples would know these things about each other by the time they reached this point; they would have had the awkward but necessary conversation about previous partners and experiences, but it's a subject Dean and Cas have deftly avoided. Probably because it veers too closely to questions about Dean's sexuality, which he still stubbornly defines as equal to straight (+Cas). So Castiel doesn't ask and Dean doesn't tell because they both know that he can't face looking at the subject straight on; he can only handle those thoughts if they're side-lit, half in shadows. _

_Then Cas drags his tongue, hot and flat, across the tip of Dean's cock as he eases in a third finger, and the sensation is so overwhelming that Dean's not able to think about anything other than the way Cas is taking complete control of his body. _

_His fingers are working in and out of Dean with ease now, feeling the muscles clench and relax as he pumps his free hand and mouth over Dean's cock in pace with the fingers fucking inside him. Dean can't decide if it's too much or not enough, every nerve on fire and taut as piano wire._

"_How do you feel?" Cas sounds even huskier than usual, his voice muffled by Dean's hot skin. _

_Dean can't even open his eyes, the words grinding out before his brain gives them permission. _

"_Like if you don't fuck me soon, I'm going to spontaneously combust." _

_Cas chuckles, happy and gratified. He needed Dean to reach this point, to beg for it. Smoothly, he sits up and reaches for a condom and more lube, slicking every centimeter of flesh and rubber that will be pressed together. Dean takes the momentary break to try to pull himself together, rubbing across his eyes and tugging at his hair, looking down the long line of his body to the V of his raised legs, Cas on his knees between them. _

_They lock eyes when Cas slowly begins pushing his length into Dean. He moves incredibly slowly, reading every tiny twitch of Dean's face to tell him when to stop, when to move further, when to kiss at the inside of his knee and murmur soothing words of love._

_And then he's there, wrapped in Dean's warmth with his tanned flesh under his hands, trusting him to be in control, and Cas has to screw his eyes shut, his chin dropping onto his chest for a long moment to make sure that he doesn't come right then and ruin everything._

_So now it's Dean's turn to whisper to Cas, his fingers tugging at his shoulders as he pulls Cas down to him – and, _holy fuck_, the angle is too piercing, too intense like this, but he decides it's worth it for a second – as he tries to articulate how overwhelmed and happy he feels, how much he wants this. _

_Cas blinks, his eyelashes like velvet dragging over Dean's oversensitive skin, and rocks back onto his knees before he begins to move, thick and wet and sharper than anything Dean's felt before. His neck bows as Cas' pace slowly climbs and Dean groans, animalistic and wild, his calloused fingertips pressing into the hard muscles of Cas' sides and urging him on. _

"_Cas, God, I didn't know-" he loses his breath and his grip on Cas, dragging his hands over his face as the sensation overwhelms him for a moment. "It's so intense, how do you-"_

_Whatever he was going to say is lost as Cas wraps his arms under Dean's thighs and shifts his angle, just a fraction, but suddenly he's found exactly the right spot. The last trace of discomfort disappears from Dean's brow, his eyes now frantic and wide, unblinking as they focus on Cas'. He can't speak anymore, at least not beyond the devout chants of Cas' name that seem to fall from his lips without his knowledge. _

_All Cas feels is Dean's tense body, a taut line of muscle that mirrors the tension building low and hot in his own, and the sweat that's slicking both their skin. "Dean," he breathes, wrapping a hand around Dean's hard cock and pumping hot and tight. "Oh, God, Dean." His hand flies, furiously fast as he feels Dean begin to spiral out of control. And then Dean is crying out and coming, his eyes rolling back as he paints both their bodies in thick white stripes._

_That sight, Dean boneless and trembling beneath him, and the wet streak on his stomach that means that Dean enjoyed this, that he _wants_ Cas there inside him, are enough to send Cas flying over the edge himself, buried to the hilt inside Dean's hot, clenching body. He trembles over Dean, groaning and slipping out before his thighs give out and he falls forward, buying his face in the bend of Dean's neck, his breath gasping and panting across the damp skin. _

_For a long minute, as the aftershocks twitch through both of them, Cas just lies there and lets Dean's shaking fingers card through the sweat-soaked strands on his neck. He's overwhelmed with gratitude and joy, so filled with it that he can barely breathe. They've got trust and love and laughter and pleasure, so much more than either of them thought they'd ever find, and it's all wrapped up right here in this tiny bed, in the words they haven't bothered to say because they're written in the salty sheen of each other's bodies. _

_Cas can feel his eyes grow wet at the thought._

_He blinks, carefully, with his face twisting away since he knows nothing will make Dean feel weirder than knowing he nearly cried after sex. And then he eases out of Dean's arms and rolls onto his back, pulling off the condom and reaching for the towel they've started keeping strategically next to the bed. Dean, oversensitive, shakes as Cas cleans them both up, his hands reverent and soft, their faces flushed as their eyes keep flitting away from one another, both a little suspiciously shining._

_Cas lies back down and they don't speak for a long time, their bodies twisted together in the dark, humid room as they listen to the howl of the wind through the loose window casings and the staccato lash of rain at the glass._

* * *

_An hour later, when the storm is raging at its peak and the candles have burned down low enough to start guttering in lakes of their own melted wax, Dean and Cas stand at the window (which, despite all his posturing, Dean has protectively covered in a large X of tape) and watch the pop and flare of transformers blowing in the dark. _

_It's like fireworks, the flashes of light giving them tiny glimpses into the storm's fury: Palm trees bent down nearly to the ground, tree limbs scattered across the cracked pavement of the bar's parking lot, Spanish moss carried on the wind like tumbleweeds. Then their power sputters out too, the stereo silencing and leaving only the sounds of the storm, the floorboards creaking under their weight, and their own breath, deep and even. Dean slips his hand into Cas' and squeezes, and Cas finds that's he's not scared anymore. _

_Not at all._

* * *

_The storm ends around midnight and they get dressed, filled with morbid curiosity to see how the world has changed. They prowl around the bar in the dark, finding a small leak in Ellen's back office that Dean puts a garbage can under. Other than that, Harvelle's seems fine. _

_So they step outside, standing in the dark parking lot for a long moment, looking toward a neon sign in the distance. It's the only place in sight that has power – thanks to a generator, Dean assumes – and they pick their way across the debris as they walk toward it like moths drawn in by the light. _

"_Jackie Chen's? Seriously, that's what's open? Who goes out in a hurricane to make General Tso's Chicken?"_

"_I don't know." Cas smiles, sly and hungry. "But I know who goes out in one to eat it."_

"_Us?"_

"_Us."_

_And sure enough, fifteen minutes later they've got white Styrofoam containers stuffed with questionable meats in weird sauces with sides of fried carbohydrates and and crunchy cookies filled with lucky lotto numbers. Dean carries the food in his right hand so he can hold onto Cas with his left, helping him find safe footing around the litter of leaves and limbs and garbage._

_Cas opens the door for him when they get back to Harvelle's, leaning in to whisper something obscene about egg rolls as Dean walks by. He chuckles, and then shrieks as they're blinded by a flashlight aimed straight at their faces._

_The light moves away as fast as it came, both of them blinking against the bright spots dancing across their vision._

"_Sorry, guys. You scared me." _

_Dean recognizes the voice before the light catches the ends of the long blonde hair of the person holding it, so he pulls away from Cas, smooth and cool as water, like he has a hundred times before._

"_Hey, Jo. You come in to check on the place?"_

"_Yeah. I would've just called you but the lines are down." In the shadows cast by the flashlight, they can see Jo's face twist in curiosity. "What are you guys doing?"_

_Dean shrugs and walks toward her. "It's Cas' first hurricane, I just wanted to make sure the little guy made it through okay. And did you know that Jackie Chen's is open?"_

_He keeps talking about Chinese food and the storm until he reaches Jo, taking her by the elbow and leading her back to Ellen's office to show her the tiny bit of damage the bar sustained. Cas stands alone in the dark entryway for a long moment, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth to bite back a sigh, or maybe it's a petulant cry for Dean to quit disavowing him in public._

_At first Cas didn't really mind – he was just so happy to be in a relationship with Dean that it didn't matter if anyone else knew about it or not. Besides, Dean swore that he didn't really have a problem being with another man. _

"_It's just everybody else, Cas. You've seen how those guys at the bar can be, not to mention the idiotic frat boys at school. I don't want to make you a target or too uncomfortable to be able to hang out with me at work."_

_And Cas accepted it. He knew he was the only one in Dean's life; he knew that they really loved each other. So he let it go every time that Dean strategically sneaked Cas up to his room when the bar was so packed that no one would notice, or when he always had some excuse to get them back out of there before Ellen came in to open every afternoon. And he didn't say anything about the homophobic jokes the guys at the bar would tell that Dean would chuckle along with, or the way he wouldn't hold Cas' hand when they rode around in the Impala. _

"_This thing doesn't have power steering, Cas. I gotta keep both hands on the wheel."_

_But like any small irritant, it's grown exponentially larger where it rubs, leaving Cas' heart raw and sore every time Dean pulls away. He still tells himself that it doesn't matter, not in the grand scheme of things. He has Dean in every way that really counts. _

_So he focuses on the memory of Dean, groaning and open and alive under his hands only a few hours ago. He relives it in every detail until it chases back the nagging sense of shame, the thought that they're running on borrowed time._

_And it comes so close to working that Cas decides to believe that it actually does._


	6. Chapter 4, part C

**A/N:** Finally, the end of this monstrous chapter! I'm going to go back to the structure I was doing before because I feel like it worked better – so it may be a few days before another update, but it'll be a bigger one.

But none of that's important. What's important is you, and how very much I love you. Seriously, you guys are the best and I love talking to you. It doesn't even have to be about this silly story, you can just PM me about anything. Want a good recipe for carrot cake or a soliloquy on why the oxford comma is such a vital piece of punctuation?

No? Really?

Oh.

* * *

The dark is quiet and close, shrinking the world down to just Dean and Cas, just the small porch they share. It's long past midnight and they're sitting together like they have nearly every night for the week since their impromptu dinner party.

Dean flicks the ash from his cigarette, a habit he only indulges when he can hide it from Lisa, and thinks about life, how cliché and strange and unpredictable it can be. He knows he's playing with fire with this friendship with Castiel; that he's a dumb son of a bitch that doesn't deserve it and probably can't handle it without something blowing up in his face. But he's never been much good at denying himself the basic pleasures of life, and he's never happier than in the small hours of the morning, in these little spaces of nostalgia and – even though Dean isn't ready to acknowledge it yet – hope.

And that's _far _too dangerous a line of thinking to continue, so he searches for something easy; banal. It'd be so much easier to talk if they weren't so busy avoiding the land mines that litter the space between them.

_Fuck, Cas, I don't know what to say, and I know your reticent ass isn't going to start the conversation. _

_Uh, how 'bout them Bears? Great weather we're having right now?_

Actually, the weather thing's not bad. Cas used to shudder and whine every time the temperature dropped below 70 and he always swore he'd live in California or Florida – one of those sunshiny places – until the day he died. Except that now he's here, in a state that's a snow-covered icebox eight months out of the year, expensive and hard and unwelcoming.

So Dean's gotta ask. "How'd you end up here, anyway?"

Cas' fingers curl tight over the arm of his rocking chair, the knuckles bleaching white. "My father died."

Dean nods, for once turning to look directly at Cas beside him. "I heard. I'm so sorry, man."

"Thank you." As terrible as it is to say, Cas hopes that playing the Dead Dad card will end the conversation.

It doesn't.

"But his place was out in California, right? So why Boston?"

Cas should lie, say something asinine about how he loves clam chowder and weird accents or that it's a great city for writers, but coming up with plausible excuses on the fly seems to be yet another of his social skills that have atrophied to the point of uselessness. So he tips his glass back and drains it, hoping the liquor will be burning through his veins by the time he gets to the end of the story.

"Do you remember Anna?"

Dean remembers that this is how Cas talks sometimes, in short phrases that are seemingly non sequiturs, so he doesn't blink at the random question.

"The redhead. The one who liked to come into the bar and talk theology with Ash."

Cas nods. "She was a philosophy major."

Dean snorts. "I remember. I used to give her so much shit about it, and then two years later Sam finally declared his major – fucking philosophy, of course, claiming it was as good a foundation as any for law school – and when Anna found out she told me that if I'd studied something more meaningful than how to market the latest running shoe I'd have learned that karma is 'quite frequently a bitch.'"

Cas shifts in his seat; he's getting around to making his point now. "Before Sam, though, you'd always tell her that she was wasting her money. You'd say, 'Everything you need to know about life is right there in that jukebox.' And then you'd throw quarters across the bar at her and tell her to turn on Springsteen or Led Zeppelin. 'All life's questions have already been asked in one song or another, and musicians have got as good of answers as anybody else.'"

Dean laughs, the memory coming back to him, foggy with time and how much he drank back then. "Man, I had forgotten about that. She would get so pissed; I can't believe she kept coming back to the bar."

"She was in love with you."

And it's been years since he's seen Anna, longer still since he and Cas were together, but Dean can still hear the burn of jealousy in his smoky voice at those words and it tugs at something – guilt, maybe, or regret – that Dean immediately has to stuff back down.

"When Dad passed, I went on a bit of a bender." Cas is picking at his ragged cuticles hard enough to make them bleed. "And I wound up back at Harvelle's – the new one though. This was a year after the place that we knew burnt to the ground."

Dean nods but stays quiet. Ellen has never told him that she saw Cas again.

"I was on a lot of stuff back then, anything I could get my hands on, really, and then I got plastered at the bar on top of it all...suffice it to say that it didn't end well.

"But before Jo kicked me out, I saw that jukebox sitting in the corner and I remembered what you said, about how you can find all the answers right there in the music. So I put my quarter in and I tried to turn on a song by Boston – I remembered that you listened to them a lot. But everything seemed to be swimming around and in triplicate and I couldn't really figure out what I was doing, so I ended up choosing a song _called_ "Boston" instead.

"It was some emotional indie-pop thing, exactly the type of song you hate, but it sucked me in anyway. And it turned out to be all about wanting to run away, to start over here, in Boston."

Cas swallows and blinks, his fingers twisted together so tightly he can't feel the ends of them, but he looks up at Dean anyway. And suddenly it's easy. It's always been easy to stare at him.

"You said the jukebox had the answers, Dean. I wanted to listen."

* * *

Dean is speechless; numb.

He'd believed for so long that when Cas left, he'd left everything about Dean behind. Wasn't that the whole point of leaving school, of running away? To escape the pain that Dean had put him through?

And if that's not true, if Cas didn't hate every fiber of Dean's being, if things weren't so irretrievably destroyed between them that Cas despises the memories, then why in the _ever-loving mother of fuck_ is Dean now in a strange city and a mediocre relationship, sustaining himself with secret cigarettes, shots of whiskey, and stolen minutes in the dark with Castiel?

He reaches out for Cas' hand, totally over the careful eggshell dance they've been playing at. He needs Cas' side of the story - what really happened, why he left, why he wrote the things he wrote in that book if he hadn't been destroyed by their relationship.

And most importantly, why they're sitting in chairs on two different pieces of property instead of tangled up in the sheets inside one.

Cas can see it – the crack in Dean's usually carefully-constructed facade, the pain and longing and years of repression bubbling up to the surface – and he can barely breathe, petrified and desperate, not ready for this, sure that he's too broken to know what to do or say.

He's not even entirely sure of the details himself any more, not sure what's really responsible for the misery of the past few years, but he's beginning to suspect that it's been mostly self-inflicted.

He can't talk to Dean about that yet; he's got to figure out how to talk to himself about it first.

So it's a relief when the porch light clicks on over Dean's head, followed by the metallic sound of the door handle twisting open. They both straighten in their chairs and look away – Dean toward his opening front door, Cas as far into the distance as the closely populated street will allow.

"Babe? You okay?" Lisa's voice is rough with sleep, her tiny nightgown translucent in the overhead lighting.

"Yeah, Lisa, I'm fine. Couldn't sleep, that's all."

"Well, come back in, I'll make you some tea."

And Cas swears that time travel exists, because he's suddenly back in Harvelle's after the hurricane, watching Dean deny him as he walks toward an attractive woman.

Except that he's not.

This time Dean doesn't stand, doesn't follow her back inside. He reaches over to Cas, wraps one of those impossibly strong hands around the top of his shoulder.

"I'll be there later. I'm kind of in the middle of something here."

Lisa follows his gaze and finally sees Cas, sitting still at the edge of the circle of light.

"Oh, hey, Castiel. Sorry, you're so quiet I didn't even notice you there." She folds her arms over her chest, suddenly self-conscious in her flimsy clothing. "I'm going to head back in – you guys be careful; the mosquitoes are terrible this year."

As if to illustrate her point, one bites at Cas' ankle, and the sting is enough to jar him out of his frozen shock. He stands, clumsy in his haste, Dean's hand falling away as he stumbles around his chair and toward his own dark door.

"Yes, in fact I think it's probably time for me to return to bed. Thank you for your concern."

Dean's voice is ragged, too loud in the quiet night. "Cas, damn it, wait-"

"No, Dean, really. I think it's time."

Dean frowns, his hands curling into fists with frustration, but he can see the determination in Cas' eyes so he forces himself to let it go.

For now.

So they both move toward their respective homes, but Dean is sure to catch Cas' eye before the light goes out. He can't be sure, but he's always believed that they share some previously undiscovered language, transmitted solely through pointed looks.

Dean's says that he's sorry, that he wants to pick this up again as soon as possible.

Cas' says that he understands, but he's not sure that's a good idea.

And then the dual sound of closing doors. Dean stands at his for a long moment, his fingertips pressed to the smooth wood, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

But Cas is moving with purpose, flipping the lock behind himself and stalking up his stairs, not bothering with the light until he reaches his dusty, cluttered junk room. There, in the far corner, covered with an old laptop and stacks of blank notebooks, stands an antique desk. The top is covered in a thousand tiny scratches, the impressions of so many words written by generations of Novaks, including Cas' beloved father.

He hasn't touched the desk since he had it brought here when he sold his father's house. It was a symbol of everything that he'd lost – of family and writing and his history and career.

But as he looks at it in the moonlight, it's suddenly not so scary. Something has taken root in Cas in these past few weeks, something small and fragile but growing, bringing heat and warmth, easing the crushing weight that's been on his chest. He thinks he's excited. He thinks he's inspired. It's familiar and foreign, almost uncomfortable, but he feels free in a way he hasn't in a long time.

Cas pulls out the desk chair and settles in. He runs his fingers over everything, getting reacquainted, feeling like he's standing on the edge of something momentous.

He clicks on the desk lamp and blows the dust off the pile of composition books, cracking the spine of one open before him as he uncaps a pen.

And then, for the first time in more than half a decade, Cas begins to write.


	7. Chapter 5

Sam was right – this mattress is too goddamn big.

It's a barren wasteland; acres of empty real estate between Dean and Lisa's sleeping form. And every time insomnia strikes and he lies there at 2 am, staring over at her in the green glow from his alarm clock, the space is bigger.

Dean knows he's a jackass. He doesn't try to be, he really doesn't, he's just terrible at anything that involves emotions and commitments and thinking about what he really wants. Somehow he always manages to hurt the people that love him and he hates it... but he's got no idea how to stop it.

So he watches Lisa retreat from his side of the bed and he keeps his mouth shut about it. Because she's a smart girl - it's part of why he liked her in the first place - and Dean's sure that she knows something's up with him. Something serious. But having that conversation means someone leaving, means giving up, and neither one of them is willing to face that yet.

So the space grows, and Dean keeps being a jackass.

And then, a month after he moved in, he just can't take it anymore. Maybe he can't say anything to Lisa, but that doesn't mean he can't try to work it out for himself.

So, even though he'd rather remove his own spleen with a rusty spoon, he goes to talk with Sam the next day.

They're on the tiny balcony outside Sam's 400-square-foot-but-in-a-trendy-neighborhood Boston apartment, the sweating beer in Dean's hand nowhere near enough alcohol to make him comfortable with what he has to say.

He knows that his brother has done the basic arithmetic – putting together Dean's big bisexual coming out speech from back in college and his current weird vibe with Castiel. So at least he won't have to start by explaining things like butt sex or, worse, epic gay love and shit.

And Sam, as usual, deftly bypasses Dean's emotional constipation and gets to the point.

"You don't know what to do about Lisa."

"Jesus, dude, quit it with that Sylvia Browne shit. You gotta let a man speak his mind in his own time, ease into things."

"Sorry." Sam presses his lips together, looks out at the city's skyline. He flips a bottle cap between his fingers, crosses and uncrosses his feet beneath his chair. "You ready yet?"

Dean sighs and slouches, defeated. "Yeah."

"Are you in love with her?"

Dean sighs again, and groans to go with it this time, squirming in his seat like that will somehow let him worm out of answering the question.

"I thought I was. It had been so long since I'd felt anything for anyone, and, you know, Lisa's great. Who wouldn't fall in love with her?"

Sam's quiet for a second, knowing that he's about to get into the real meat of it. "But then, Cas."

"Yeah. Cas."

"I thought that wasn't a possibility anymore."

"It's not. At least, I don't think so. You read the book, you know how awful I made him feel. What'd that Kakutani chick say in her review? 'A tragic story, ostensibly about love, that is in reality a case study in internalized homophobia and the utter ruin it brings upon everyone it touches.'" Dean huffs and takes a long pull on his beer.

"Dude, you memorized it? How many times did you read that damn review?"

"Look, Sammy, when the _New York fucking_ _Times _passes judgment on your romantic failures, you tell me how well you handle it."

Sam raises his hands in surrender. "Fine. So anyway-"

"So anyway, no. I'm not counting on Cas ever coming back from that. But being around him... it makes me remember what it can feel like. How it can be."

Sam's eyes are practically laser beams boring into the side of Dean's skull.

"You don't feel it with her. What you felt with him, I mean."

Dean picks at the corner of the label on his beer bottle, shredding the paper until it makes confetti that rains down on the streets of the Back Bay district.

"No." It's bloody and raw, like Sam fished into the very depths of Dean until he pulled this confession up, painful and festering. But he's lighter once he gets it out. "I don't think I ever will."

Sam waits a minute, lets Dean recover from that revelation. "You deserve to be happy, Dean."

"Maybe not, Sammy. Maybe you get one shot, one chance to be happy, and then you're fucked."

"I don't think that's true."

"Oh really?" Dean laughs, but there's no humor in it. "So if something tragic happened and you lost Jess, you really think you could be happy with anyone else?"

Sam stays silent. He knows the answer; he knows that it won't help Dean.

A seagull flies by, loud and irritating. A ship horn blows in the distance.

Finally, Sam speaks. "So what are you going to do?"

Dean's chewed on his lip so hard that it's swollen, his jaw tense as he replies.

"I don't know, Sammy. I mean, it's not perfect, what I have with her, not by a long shot. But it's easy, and it's pleasant enough. Maybe that's all I get now. Maybe that's all I deserve."

Sam wants to say that Dean and Lisa are both great people, that they deserve to be happy, _really _happy, and shouldn't settle until they find that intangible magic that he shares with Jess. But it's not his place, and Dean wouldn't believe him anyway.

Not until he learns it on his own; not until he earns it. So Sam drains his beer and says the only thing he can.

"Whatever you decide, Dean, you've always got a home with me if you need it."

Dean sighs and picks up their empty bottles.

"We need more beer. Like, enough that I can forget that I intentionally chose to have this stupid chick-flick conversation with my brother."

He slides open the door to the apartment and yells.

"Hey, Jess? I must have lost my balls when I got here earlier. If you see 'em laying around, be a peach and just stick them in your purse where you keep Sam's, okay?"

He doesn't even have to turn around to know when to duck the bottle cap Sam chucks at his head.

* * *

It's the next Saturday afternoon, sunny and warm, and Dean's in his driveway under the hood of his baby. There's grease stains on his jeans and under his nails, there's a cooler of beer at his feet, and they're playing AC/DC on the radio.

So basically, if heaven exists, this is pretty damn close to it. Only way it could be better was if Cas was -

"Hello, Dean."

_Seriously? _

Dean stands and crosses his fingers. "I wish I had a million dollars."

Cas does that funny head-tilt that makes him look like a confused puppy.

"Are you asking to borrow money from me?"

Dean laughs and swipes at the sweat trickling down his forehead.

"No, man, I'm good. I was just testing a theory."

Cas frowns like he always does when he doesn't understand what's going on, so Dean decides to move on before he asks.

"Haven't seen you around a whole lot lately. Everything okay with you?"

Now Cas smiles, that big, rare one that seems to swallow his entire face. "Yes, thank you, I'm quite well. I've just been wrapped up in a new project."

Dean's bent back over the car, the look on Cas' face doing things to him that are totally inappropriate given his current relationship status. So his voice is muted when he answers.

"Oh, yeah? Back to writing or are you taking on something new?"

"Writing. It's the only thing I know how to do. I can't imagine what else I would even attempt."

Dean smirks, glad his face is bent over the engine since he can barely restrain his natural urge to flirt.

_No, Cas, you know how to do _plenty _more than that._

But he's made a deal with himself that he's going to actively work against fucking stuff up from now on. He's still with Lisa, something that confuses him even more since his little revelatory heart-to-heart with Sam, but he figures the answer will come to him eventually. He's always been a little slow with stuff that has to do with emotions.

And until that's settled, Dean's not going to say or do anything that could hurt Cas. He's not even sure what that would be since he's got no idea how Cas feels about him anymore, whether flirting would be perceived as sexual harassment or leading Cas on or just embarrassing for Dean.

So. Friends-stuff only. They started out that way; how hard can it be to go back?

Twenty minutes later, and Dean's got his answer.

Really, really hard. Like shit that only John McClane or Rambo could pull off. Because the sight of Cas, happy and relaxed in the sunshine, is like seeing a sparkly unicorn with rainbows streaming out its ass. Pure magic and beauty, just begging for Dean to put his hands on and ride until they're both panting and sweating and-

_GOD DAMMIT, DEAN. You've really got to work on your self-control. You're a grown man, for Christ's sake._

So he doesn't let himself look up very often, instead fiddling with hoses and belts that don't need any work, topping up the washer fluid, checking the oil at least three times in a row. And he listens, all about how Cas has finally found this great idea for a story and how fulfilling it is to be writing again, how he feels like he's finally getting back a part of himself that he'd thought was long dead. Dean gets the feeling that he's the first person Cas has been able to tell all this to, he's so worked up with all this pent-up excitement that's spilling out of him and all over Dean-

-and then his brain is vacationing in Gutterville, USA once again.

Dean sighs and straightens up, rubbing at the muscles in his lower back that are protesting his posture, reminding him once again that he's not exactly young anymore.

"Hand me a beer, would you?"

Cas slides off the cooler he's been perched on and fishes a couple of bottles out, popping the tops like he's done it a thousand times before.

Which, judging by the number of empties that fill the recycling bin in front of his house every Monday morning, he probably has.

Dean takes a long drink and leans back against the shiny black of the car.

"Lisa didn't want to join you for your little stint as a mechanic?" Cas asks.

Dean shakes his head. "Nah, I'm on my own for the week. She's in some friend's wedding back in Indiana and they're running around doing dress fittings and bridal lunches and fuck-if-I-know-what-else."

"You aren't accompanying her?"

"Jess is due to pop any day now. Just wouldn't be right if the godfather wasn't there to witness the blessed event. Well, witness it after it's all over, and everybody's all cleaned up and aren't in pain and don't have their private bits just hanging out there."

Dean's still traumatized, having made the mistake of watching part of one the birthing videos Sam brought home in the name of "research" when they first found out they were expecting. They'd made it exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds – until the first extreme close-up – until he and Jessica had both fled the room screaming.

"Jesus _Christ, _Sam, what the hell?! Did you get this from the horror section or something?"

"It just looks so _angry_," Jessica cried. "I don't want to make my body that angry. What the fuck was I thinking – Sam, you're like seven feet tall! Imagine what it's going to be like with your giant hellspawn fighting its way out of me-"

It'd taken two hours and many promises from Sam that she would get all the drugs in the known universe the second she went into labor before Jess calmed back down, although she still gets queasy every time someone mentions how close she is to her due date.

Cas takes a drink, looking past Dean at _his_ baby.

"You've done a great job fixing her up."

And now it's Dean's turn to wear the face-splitting grin of pride, turning to admire the Impala's beauty.

"Yeah. It took me forever and cost a metric fuckton but she's worth it. She's perfect now."

Cas steps closer, peering at the car's shiny black lines, the perfectly polished interior. It really is a beautiful car, although he can't help noting the only part that doesn't appear to be restored.

"You didn't re-cover the back seat."

Dean flushes, his eyes drawn to the cracked black leather, the white stuffing showing through in patches.

"No. I, uh, I couldn't bring myself to do it."

Cas does the fucking head tilt again and Dean stares at the ground, raising the beer up to hover in front of his lips as if the glass could hold back the words that go against his new resolution.

"Some things are sacred, Cas."

* * *

"_Hey, hand me that compression gauge, would you?"_

_Cas obliges, barely hesitating as he scribbles in his notebook. A year ago he didn't know the difference between an oil filter wrench and a can opener, but ever since Bobby had given Dean permission to use his garage to work on the Impala – an offer that had prompted Dean to vault over the bar and hug Bobby hard enough to lift him off his stool until he protested, "Don't make a big deal about it, ya idgit. We're closed on Sundays anyway," - it had become an integral part of their weekend. Dean liked to joke that it was his equivalent of attending church._

_And more often than not, that joke would turn into another one about how most people fall to their knees during religious experiences, which would then lead, naturally, to groping and blow jobs in the backseat. _

_Leave it to Dean Winchester to get from God to giving head in two steps or less. _

_Which is how Dean finds himself sitting on the worn leather of the backseat with Cas kneeling in the floorboard before him, those full lips pink and shiny and sucking enthusiastically on Dean's rock-hard cock, when Bobby walks into the garage. _

"_Hey Dean, have you seen my phone lying around? Ellen says it's not at the Roadhouse and that's the only other damn place I go besides here, so-"_

_Bobby looks up, finally, noticing that Dean's just sitting in the backseat instead of actually working on his car. What he can't see from that distance is that Dean's half naked with his boyfriend's tongue gliding over his balls._

_Dean's not sure what the closed car doors are protecting more – his dignity or Bobby's sanity._

"_Everything alright there, boy?"_

"_Yeah, Bobby, doing great, just - ah!" Cas has taken this moment to decide he likes practical jokes, swallowing Dean down until he's practically deep-throating him, humming softly to himself as he pulls back to lick at Dean's precome before plunging back down._

"_Just...?"_

"_Sorry, I must be, uh, still hungover from last night or something. I was – oh, fuck – I'm testing out the upholstery. You know, seeing if I can get by with it for a few more years or if it needs to be – Christ – if it needs re-covering."_

_He's panting by the time he finishes speaking, straining to hold back the string of expletives that he wants to scream over the obscene things Cas' mouth is doing. _

"_Yeah, alright." Bobby's face clearly says that he doesn't buy it but that he probably doesn't want to know. "So have you seen the phone?" _

_Oh, Christ - he glances down and Cas winks, the little fucker. He opens his mouth wider so Dean can see his tongue dragging over him, doing that THING to the tip that Dean still hasn't figured out how to do himself - and then he remembers about Bobby, who is staring at him like he's wondering if he should call in some sort of medical professional._

_Dean tries to speak through his clenched jaw, his teeth grinding together. Cas has picked up the pace and brought his hands into the action, the friction and heat nearly impossible for Dean to think through._

"_Toolbox. Far corner. Next to my keys." He pants for a second, catching at Castiel's hair, but he's not sure if he wants to pull him off or urge him on. "Iwasgoingtobringittoyouatthebartonight." _

_Bobby picks up the ancient Nokia clunker. "Thanks. Guess I'll see you later, then. Good luck with that whole..." he waves his hand vaguely in Dean's direction,"...upholstery analysis."_

_Dean throws up a hand in what he hopes is an approximation of a wave until Bobby disappears from sight, the sound of his old truck starting up rumbling into the garage._

"_Fuck, Cas, I'm gonna-"_

_That's all the warning he gets out before he's coming, hard and long from fighting it so much, blacking out for a second as his head drops onto the seat back._

_Cas wipes his mouth and crawls up into the seat next to him, smiling, his eyes sparkling._

"_Do you think Bobby suspected anything?"_

"_Nah. His dick's rustier than the junkyard out back. He probably doesn't even remember what sex looks like."_

_Cas wants to believe that the relieved tone in Dean's voice is out of modesty, that he just wouldn't want anyone knowing the details of his sex life. But he's heard too many salacious stories going around the bar of Dean's past conquests to believe that could ever be true._

_He doesn't say anything though; he never does. And then something feral slides over Dean's features. He shoves Cas down in the seat and growls against his ear._

"_Your turn. And I'm going to tease like a motherfucker, make you _beg _for it. Payback's a bitch."_

* * *

"You know, I never thought I'd be able to look at an Impala again."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "They're everywhere, Cas. They're just generic as fuck now."

Cas shakes his head and leans back. They've talked for hours - Dean catching Cas up on how everyone's doing back at Harvelle's and telling him about his work; Cas smiling and nodding, proud of himself for being outside and holding a real conversation.

The sun has drifted lower in the sky, the light a darker gold and catching on the scruff of Cas' chin, playing up the flecks in Dean's eyes.

"I don't mean literally, Dean. I just didn't think I'd be able to look at one and appreciate it. The last time I ever saw you was in that car."

"Uh, no it wasn't," Dean answers slowly, afraid to step this deeply into the territory of their shared history. "It was in my room, after that fight."

Cas shakes his head. "It was half an hour after that. I was walking back, and then I saw you peel out of the parking lot."

Dean wants to wonder if it would have changed anything if he'd seen Cas there, if he'd waited another five minutes, but he knows that it wouldn't have.

"So you wrote a note instead."

Cas clears his throat and looks away. Dean chews on his lip for a moment, debating, then decides there's nothing wrong with what he's about to say... except that it's eight years overdue.

"That's not the last time I saw you, you know."

"No?"

"Nu uh." Dean leans back against the side of the car and stretches his legs out before him. He's in the thick of it now, might as well get comfortable. "I went to one of your book signings. In Miami."

Cas can remember that one, sort of. He'd been more on edge than he usually was, afraid that one of the crew at Harvelle's would have heard about it, maybe felt compelled to make the four hour drive down and attend.

And if they were there for the reading, a selection that described green eyes and strong hands, passion and fear and self-incrimination, he would feel like he'd bared not only his soul but Dean's - and against his will. So Cas had scoured the crowd inside that stupid Barnes & Noble. There were no familiar faces; he was sure of it.

"I didn't see you there."

Dean stares at the bottle in his hand, catches a drop of condensation that was about to drip off the glass and onto his thigh.

"Yeah, I didn't want you to. You'd been hiding from me – dodging my calls, blocking my emails - and I thought it might throw off your game if you knew I was there. So I hid in the back, in the stacks. Watched you from between copies of _War and Peace _and listened to the reading. You have a great voice for that, by the way. It was captivating."

"You came all that way and didn't want to say hello?"

"It was the first week of the book's launch, Cas. I hadn't read it yet. I hadn't seen the reviews. All I knew was what you had told me – that it was a fictionalized account of our relationship. So when I heard the specifics about how I'd hurt you every day, just by hiding things... I mean, I knew that I'd screwed up by not telling Sam. You made that clear, and I got it. But until I heard our story in your own words, I really didn't understand how big of an asshole I'd been, how much damage I'd done to you.

"I'd been planning on approaching you. Figured you'd at least have to talk to me for the five seconds it would take to sign my copy of your book. But after I heard about the depression, the jealousy, the anger... I just lost it. I was heartbroken, guilty, miserable, furious with myself... just a giant mess, really. I fled before you even started taking questions. Walked right out the front door with your book in my hand, and it wasn't until I was about 30 miles up the turnpike that I realized that I hadn't even paid for it."

Dean had been staring off as he spoke, but he makes himself lock eyes with Cas now, makes sure that he is understood.

"I don't even know how to say sorry for what I did to you. I just... I was an idiot, and I understand now how wrong it was to try to keep you as my little secret.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Cas. Never. It's my biggest regret."

Castiel nods and swallows, thickly, carefully blinking back the tears in his eyes.

"It's alright, Dean. I forgave you a long time ago. And I hope you'll accept my apology – I'm sorry that I never really talked to you about how I was feeling, at least not until I published it for the whole world to read. And I'm sorry I never picked up the phone after I left, never said a proper goodbye."

Dean clears his throat and nods.

"Water long under the bridge, Cas."

And just like that, the gaping chasm of pain and guilt and thousands of unsaid things that has been between them for so long closes, the ground scorched but smooth, solid.

Dean smiles, lighter than he's felt in years. He leans over to fish his wallet out of his back pocket.

"Now that I've confessed to my criminal act of shoplifting, I can make amends for it. What do I owe you? Fifteen, twenty bucks?"

Dean starts pulling out bills and tossing them at Cas, who's laughing and throwing them right back.

"I wish I'd had you negotiate my contract if you think that's what it's worth to me. I only get pennies per book, Dean."

Dean reaches back in his pocket but comes up empty. "Sorry, dude. I don't carry change."

Cas tilts his head, an idea coming to him.

"How about we just say that you owe me a favor?"

And Dean should know better than to just accept, but he's new to this whole not-fucking-things-up concept. So he smiles, nods, and finishes his beer.

"Deal."


	8. Chapter 6

At 6:22 that Monday morning Castiel is knocking, politely but insistently, at Dean's front door.

It's 6:24 by the time Dean wrenches it open, blinking, his hair everywhere and the Ramones t-shirt he just pulled on still rucked up on the side, showing a triangle of soft skin.

"Cas, man, I'm glad we're friends again and all, but how many times do I gotta remind you that I am not exactly a morning person?"

Cas answers loudly enough that Dean's sure he didn't hear a word he just said.

"I'd like to cash in my favor now."

Dean scrubs his hand over his face and clears his throat, trying to wake up. The only thing he's been able to understand so far is that Cas isn't going away, so he opens the door wider and steps back, letting him come inside.

That's when he notices how Cas is dressed, in a perfectly pressed blue suit that makes his eyes look even brighter than usual and a crisp white dress shirt, with shining black shoes and platinum cufflinks sparkling at his wrists. He's meticulously put together but his hair is still a wrecked mess of black, which just makes the whole thing even sexier somehow.

_Hot damn. At least part of me is awake now._

"Why so fly, Cas?"

Castiel is silent for a long moment, his eyebrows drawing together.

"I don't understand, Dean."

"The clothes. What's with the suit?"

"Ah. That's my favor. I would like a ride to the train station, as I have a lunch meeting with my former agent in New York."

Dean startles fully awake now, smiling and clapping a hand on Cas' shoulder.

"Seriously? Dude, that's awesome. Of course I'll give you a ride... but why are you taking the train?"

Cas smiles back in answer, small and private.

"I don't have a license, Dean. The train is the most expeditious and economical choice available."

Dean reads the tense set of Cas' shoulders, the nervous flick of his eyes. Cas has always hated public transit, and he's lived in virtual seclusion for years. Finding his way to an agency in the midst of Manhattan is probably far more than the little guy can handle right now.

"Yeah, maybe, but it's not the most fun way. Why don't I take the day off, give you a lift down there?"

"That's more of a favor than I could ask, Dean. It's supposed to be something that's the equivalent of a few cents – the ride to the train station is already overreaching."

"Not if it's what I want to do. Come on, Cas. I get a shit-ton of vacation days and no real excuse to take them, and the Impala hasn't had highway miles since before I had her trailered up here." He smiles, the one that's slightly crooked and lights up his eyes, the one he knows Cas can't resist. "It'll be fun. I haven't been to New York in forever; we can make a day of it, see some sights, get dinner somewhere awesome."

Cas is silent and still for a moment, staring at Dean in that way that always made him slightly uncomfortable.

"Very well. If you're willing to take me to my meeting, I would very much appreciate it."

Dean's already halfway up his stairs by the time Cas finishes talking.

"Lemme get dressed. Do me a favor and make some coffee? We'll take it with us."

* * *

They've just cleared the snarl of Boston traffic and are headed west on the Mass Pike, Cas prim in the passenger's seat that he occupied about a thousand times before in a different lifetime.

"Thank you, Dean. I know there are more pleasant ways you could have spent one of your days off."

Dean listens to the summer wind whipping through the open windows, the blare of Metallica from his stereo. He sees Cas' profile in his peripheral vision, watches the asphalt disappear under the Impala's tires. And he says the first thing that pops into his mind.

"There's literally nowhere on Earth that I'd rather be right now, Cas. So thank you."

Cas nods, and history repeats himself – he eases into the leather seat, relaxes his grip and starts to enjoy himself.

_You've grown up, Dean, and you've learned from your mistakes. It's not the same history all over again._

"So... what is your meeting all about?"

Cas thumbs through the file in his fingers, his fingers running over the pages like they can speak for him, like the answers are already there in the ink.

"About my new book. It's really fiction this time – a follow-up, sort of, to _Please Don't Give Me Up_. It's a story about old lovers who have inflicted significant damage on one another but somehow find their way back to each other after a decade of silence."

_Really fiction._ Dean thinks about the space in his bed between himself and Lisa. He thinks about the way he can barely stop himself from touching Cas every time they see each other. And then he thinks about his resolve. About how he's not going to fuck shit up any more.

And he stays quiet.

* * *

They make it into the city in good time, Dean swearing as he tries to negotiate Manhattan traffic. But he only makes two wrong turns before he finds the right building, thanking every deity in the universe that it has underground parking. He glides into the first open space, the engine's rumble echoing in the dark garage.

There's not a single muscle of Cas' entire body that isn't coiled with tension, his eyes wide and darting. His voice is so rough that it sounds like it's painful for him to speak.

"I don't know if I can do this. My people skills... they're a bit rusty."

Dean reaches over and wraps his hand around Cas' slender forearm, the suit smooth under his fingers.

"Of course you can, Cas. You're brilliant and incredibly talented. Your old agent has probably been shitting herself with excitement since the second you called. I mean, she agreed to meet you right away, right? And she's some big, important literary agent. No way she clears her schedule unless she's serious about you."

"But, Dean, I was so irresponsible the last time. I broke my contract, I said horrible things..."

"Blame it on the artistic temperament or something. Lots of writers go a little nutty sometimes."

Cas covers Dean's hand with his own for a second and squeezes, then takes a deep breath to steel himself. He picks up his folder and steps out of the car, leaning back down to look at Dean at the last second. His eyes are so blue in his pale face, for a second they're all Dean can see.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't go far, okay?"

Dean smiles and stretches out in his seat. "I'll wait right here the whole time. Promise."

* * *

"_Get dressed, something nice. I'm taking you out to dinner." Cas' face is flushed, his hands shaking with excitement as he slams Dean's door behind him._

_Dean's cramming for his accounting mid-term, a half-chewed pen cap dangling from his lips. "What? Cas, I gotta study, and I'm working tonight-"_

"_No, you're not. I already talked to Ellen. And I'll help you study when we get back." He pulls Dean's only suit out of the closet and tosses it at him. _

_Dean looks up, about to continue protesting, but he sees the almost-manic gleam in Cas' eye. "Okay, okay. I'll get dressed. What's the big occasion?"_

"_I'll tell you at dinner."_

_Twenty minutes later, Cas directs him to a dark, romantic fondue place downtown. _

"_Swanky, Cas. I mean, I know your Dad gives you an allowance and all, but are you sure you can swing this?"_

_Cas just smiles, proud and secretive. "I'm sure."_

_He makes it until the first course is served and Dean's mouth is stuffed with cheese-soaked bread cubes, and then Cas' excitement overflows and he blurts it out._

"_I'm going to be a published author."_

_Dean's eyes nearly pop out of his head, although Cas isn't sure how much of that is from the news itself and how much is from Dean nearly choking, coughing and swallowing until his face turns red and he can gasp for breath again._

"_Are you serious? Cas, that's amazing. How did that even happen?"_

"_Well, you know I've been writing."_

_Dean did know, he'd seen the collection of composition books that Cas had started compiling, covering them in furious scribbles. It had started over the previous summer and reached a point where he never went anywhere without one, burning through pens so quickly that Dean had taken to buying them for him by the boxful. He turned it into a sort of game, arranging different colors together like a bouquet of flowers and tying them up with rubber bands, leaving them in an empty jar on Cas' side of the bed. _

_But Cas had never told him what he was writing and Dean had just assumed it was some sort of senior project for Cas' literature degree. He never even knew Cas wanted to be a writer. _

"_Yeah, but there's a big difference between writing and being published. I mean, don't you have to have an agent and contracts and all that stuff?"_

"_Yes, I do. My agent's name is Pamela and she negotiated a deal for me this morning. I'm getting quite a sizable advance."_

_Dean gapes, completely thrown. He feels dizzy and at least ten steps behind, the world tilting slightly as this new information slides into place, shaking a hundred questions loose and bouncing around his brain._

"_This is so incredible, Cas. I'm so proud of you. Why didn't you tell me you were trying to sell a book? Or even that you were writing one? What's it about?"_

_Cas blushes and looks down, his whole body practically vibrating with pride._

"_I didn't want to say anything because I didn't think anything would come of it. But then I sent the first chapter to a few agencies and one of them called me, and then I got the deal... it all happened very quickly."_

"_Well, then, what are we waiting for? This deserves a proper celebration!" _

_Dean flags down a passing waiter and orders a bottle of champagne, reaching under the table to squeeze Cas' knee._

* * *

_They're tipsy, full of bubbly and every type of food that can be dipped into cheese or chocolate by the time they stumble back into Dean's room. Cas' hands are already fumbling at Dean's tie as he kicks the door shut behind them._

"_So when do I get to read it?"_

_"Mmm?" Cas is biting a kiss at the side of Dean's neck, his hands shoving the suit coat off his broad shoulders._

"_Your book," Dean pants. "You have carefully avoided telling me what it's about. So when do I get to read it?"_

"_It takes a while before things get published. Months." Cas has popped open the top three buttons of Dean's dress shirt and is gliding his mouth over the sharp curve of his collarbone, but Dean tenses. He can tell there's something wrong with the way Cas refuses to answer._

"_Wait, wait." He pulls back, bends down slightly until he forces Cas to meet his eye. _

"_Cas? What's the book about?"_

_Cas' fingers curl at his sides, his heart somehow moving into his throat as if it could hold back the words, keep Dean from finding out._

"_It's a novel. A... love story. I was inspired by us."_

_Something warm slides through Dean's belly, pleasant and nausea-inducing at the same time._

"_'Exactly how inspired, Cas?"_

_Cas licks his lips, no longer flushed and swollen from being pressed against Dean's. He's ashen now, nearly the same color as his shirt._

"_I didn't use our real names. But the plot, many of the details... it's our story, Dean. It's beautiful. I wanted to share it."_

_Dean paces away from him, turning back and stopping when he reaches the far wall. _

"_Our story, Cas? A whole book about us, published under your real name, for the whole world to read and judge." His gaze is distant, hollow, and he rubs his hands over his face and up into his hair. "How could this... I mean, what if..."_

_And this is it, Cas can see it. They've been living on the edge of a knife for so long, careful to walk the line between their happy private life and non-existent public one, and now Cas has shoved them off of it. That knife is going to shred every inch of them on the way down, leaving them bleeding and broken and raw._

"_What, Dean?" _

_It's steel, cold and hard, and it should be a warning to Dean to tread carefully here, but he's too far gone to hear it._

"_Cas, my brother reads. A lot. Like all the fucking time. What if he finds your book and he recognizes me in it and finds out about this. Not to mention Ellen and Jo, Bobby and Ash, everybody at school, oh, God..."_

_He doesn't hear Cas' sharp intake of breath, doesn't see his jaw tense so hard that it makes his teeth feel like glass, cracking and fragile. _

"_Sam doesn't know?"_

_Dean shakes himself, blinks. "What? No, no, Sam doesn't know anything."_

"_I know everything about Sam. EVERYTHING,_ _Dean. I've never met the man, but I could pick him out of a police line-up, because you love him, so you talk about him. That's what people do. So tell me how it's possible that we've been together for nearly two years now, and he has no idea that I even exist?"_

"_We don't flaunt our relationship, Cas. Nobody knows."_

_Castiel is shaking now, every ache and grievance from all this time surging up out of the dark pit he'd shoved them in and crashing over him, washing away the last traces of his control._

"_No, Dean. There's a difference between being discreet and what we do. And Sam's got nothing to do with either one. He's family. He lives in a different state. That thing you always say about wanting things to stay comfortable and safe for me? That doesn't apply to Sam. If you were ever serious about this, if you ever thought it was going to really last, you would have told him."_

_And then it hits Cas just how true those words are. "You would have. And you didn't. I'm in this alone... and I'm such a fool."_

_Dean can't feel the floor beneath his feet, can't feel anything but blind, numb panic. He's falling, angry and terrified, completely unprepared for this conversation and unsure of how to stop it. His mouth opens and closes a few times silently, like a fish gasping on dry land, and Cas just shakes his head._

"_I have to go."_

_Dean wants to stop him. Wants to move, to reach out and wrap his arms around Castiel, to bury his face in the bend of his neck and cry and apologize and promise to do anything – _anything_ – if he can stop this, to fix it somehow. _

_But he doesn't. He watches Cas disappear, closing the door behind himself, and Dean doesn't move for a solid five minutes. _

_Because if he doesn't move, it didn't happen. He'll stay just like this, and Cas will come back, and everything will be fine. It'll be fine._

_It's not fine._

"_Son of a bitch!" _

_Dean is screaming and throwing things, pens clattering to the ground, a boot knocking into the plaster of the far wall, cigarettes falling like leaves out of the open pack he hurls at the door. _

_He sinks, curling into a tiny, shaking, sobbing ball, and rocks himself. The fear crackles like static, so overwhelming that it becomes white noise and serves as a filter, distilling his thoughts into three simple concepts._

_He can't lose Cas. Cas is everything. And Cas left because Dean hasn't told Sam._

_That's as far as he gets before he's up, not bothering to grab his coat or button his shirt back up, not checking if he has his phone. He finds his keys in the rumple of unmade bedding and leaves, not stopping to lock the door behind him. He only hits about every third stair on the way down, nearly twisting an ankle in his haste, and pushes through the crowded bar without seeing anything but the door._

_The Impala rumbles, loud and strong, and Dean's never been happier to drive a fast car. Because the faster he gets to Sam, the faster he can fix this. He can get his life back._

_He doesn't see the young man in the suit with the tear-stained face standing at the edge of the lot. All he sees is his last chance, his opportunity to make this right._

* * *

_Dean drives all night on dark highways, just him and the truckers, every pit stop for gas a needle in his skin, painful and annoying and holding him back. Sam's in Nashville, at Vanderbilt, and a year early, the bookish little shit. It's an eleven hour drive that Dean makes in eight and a half, knocking on the window of Sam's dorm room in the first light of dawn. _

_Sam peers through the glass for a long minute, rubbing at his eyes, before he raises the sash._

"_Dean, seriously, what the fuck-"_

"_I've never been happier that you've got a first floor room, dude."_

_Sam blinks, the sleep fog beginning to clear from his brain, and he takes in Dean's disheveled appearance, the panicked shine to his eyes._

"_Oh, shit. Did someone die?"  
_

_Dean's already climbing in the window, stumbling a bit as he tries to fold himself over the sill. _

"_What? No. Nothing like that, Sammy. I just, uh, I had something important to tell you. Too important for the phone."_

_And in all the time that he drove up here, the crazy frenzy that consumed him over his decision to scramble his whole life together, the Sam parts and the Cas parts and the Harvelle parts, he never actually thought out how he was going to say this. _

_So he rips the band-aid off fast, hoping to make the pain quick._

"_I like dudes, Sam. And I'm in love with one, in particular. His name is weird as shit and so is he, but he's also kind of perfect. And it's awesome, or it was, until I fucked it all to hell because I was afraid to tell you."_

_Sam just stares at him for a long minute._

"_Is that really what you drove all night to tell me?"_

_Dean scratches at the back of his neck, tries and fails to read the look on Sam's face.  
_

"_...Yeah?"_

_Sam shakes his head and smiles, pulling Dean into a hug. "I know, dude. We all do." He turns him loose, smiling at Dean's bewildered face. "There's even a bet going between Ash, Ellen, Jo, and me about how long it was going to take you to come out." And then his face lights up even more. "And I have this month, so, thanks, man. I'm about to come into some much-needed cash."_

_Dean's every bit as lost as he was earlier, when he was faced with Cas' sudden rage. "You know? You all know? But... I never said anything..."_

"_We're not stupid, Dean. We love you, so we pay attention to you. And everyone could tell that you were happy, so we didn't say anything." Sam shrugs. "Figured you'd tell us when you were ready."_

_A long moment passes before Dean starts laughing, loud and long and cathartic, doubled over and clutching at his stomach. "I'm such a fucking idiot," he gasps out between guffaws._

"_Now _there's _the shocking revelation I was expecting when you showed up," Sam says._

_Dean grins at him, the whole world suddenly shining and full of promise. "Bitch."_

_Sam grins right back, squeezing his brother's shoulder. "Jerk."_

_A blanket rustles on the far side of the room as Sam's roommate groans and rolls over in his bed, throwing an arm over his face to block out the sunlight streaming through the open window. _

"_Mazel tov on your relationship, dude, but it's too early and I'm too hungover for shit to be this gay." _

_Sam laughs and throws a pillow at his face, and all the tension eases out of Dean's bones until he's made of butter, soft and warm. That feeling stays with him the whole drive back to Florida._

* * *

_Dean trudges into his room, exhausted from being up for over 24 hours and the weight that's been taken off his shoulders. All he wants to do is call Cas and tell him that he's made things right, then curl up together and sleep for at least a day and a half._

_But he stops short before he even makes it to the bed, fear sliding down his spine when he notices how bare half the room is, more floor visible than he's seen in years._

_It's all gone. Every book, CD, and piece of clothing that Cas had brought over, the stacks of notebooks and bag of toiletries. There's no trace that anyone but Dean has ever set foot in this room – none except the most recent bouquet of pens Dean had made for Cas, still standing in their jar on his otherwise-empty bedside table._

_And the single piece of white paper, folded and set primly on the bed's only remaining pillow._

_Dean picks it up with a shaking hand, already suspecting what it will say. _

"_Dean,_

_I'm so sorry. You deserve more than this, a better explanation, a chance to defend yourself. But I just can't. My heart is broken, shattered, and I don't have the strength to do this to your perfect face._

_I'm leaving. In fact, by the time you see this, I will already be long gone. I'm withdrawing from school, I'm leaving the state. I've got the means to get by and a career open to me, and my presence here is clearly more than you can deal with right now._

_That doesn't change anything I've ever said. You are the great love of my life, my muse, my everything. _

_And I will carry you with me as I go._

_All my love,_

_Castiel"_

* * *

Cas comes out of his meeting with a flush in his cheeks, a small bounce to his step. But as he grows closer to the Impala and can see Dean, talking loudly on the phone and gesticulating wildly, the smiles slips from his face.

He opens the passenger door with a squeak of the hinges; Dean throws the phone down and looks over at him. His face is white, those green eyes absurdly large and haunted.

"Perfect timing, Cas. We gotta roll – we're having a baby."

Castiel folds himself into the car and slams the door shut behind him. "Was that Sam? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean mutters, turning over the car's engine and charging toward the exit. "They're just leaving for the hospital now, so if we haul ass we should make it in time."

Cas straps in and holds on, his news forgotten until they're well outside the city.

"Shit, Cas, I'm such an ass. I haven't even asked how everything went."

Cas smiles and spreads his fingers out on his knees, squeezing to try to tamp down his joy.

"It was... great. Really great. Pamela has agreed to represent me again, and she's really excited about the book proposal."

"Really? That's amazing! That's... I mean, that's like everything, right? Your whole career, back on track?"

And Cas can't help but feel his heart leap, the sheer joy such a contrast to the way he felt when he got his first contract all those years ago.

"Yes, it's quite encouraging. There are several conditions to Pamela's representation, but..." Cas fiddles with his coat, smooths his hands down the lapels. "But I think that's probably for the best, anyway."

Dean's too distracted with baby-related panic to notice the questioning note in Cas' voice.

"That's really awesome, Cas. I'm so proud of you."

Cas grins and pulls a pen out of his pocket, starts scribbling notes to himself on the backs of the pages in his portfolio.

* * *

They make it to the hospital in record time, both of them a little surprised that they weren't pulled over for the near supersonic speeds Dean pushed the Impala to. They jog into the obstetrics waiting room, breathless and adrenalized, only to be told by a bored desk clerk that Jessica Winchester is still in labor and to have a seat.

Dean can't even think about sitting down again, having spent all day folded up inside his car, so instead he's pacing like an expectant father from the old days.

"You're going to wear a path in that carpet," Castiel tells him, sitting elegantly in a corner chair.

"Don't care," Dean replies tersely, checking his watch for at least the 43rd time since they arrived.

Cas sighs and tosses down the newspaper he was reading, standing when Dean's transit brings him back to Cas' side of the room.

"Dean, perhaps I should go. This is a family event. My presence is... diluting, at best."

Dean stops, focusing on Castiel fully for the first time in hours.

"No. No, Cas, you can't leave. This is family, yeah, but it's mostly about life. It's about love and miracles and letting new people into our hearts." He reaches over and rests his hand on Cas' shoulder, warm and firm and comforting.

"I can't think of anyone that I'd rather have here with me."

Cas opens his mouth to answer, to say something that he's sure he'll regret later, but Sam barges into the waiting room in that moment. He's exhausted and terrified and ecstatic, his hair wild and tangled, the hospital gown and gloves he wears smudged with blood.

But his face is consumed by his smile, burning so brightly that it's almost difficult to look at.

"It's a boy. We've got a little boy."


	9. Chapter 7

"I have to find a therapist."

"No shit. I've been telling you this for years."

Cas sighs and leans his forehead against the top of his desk, the phone at his ear clanking against the wood.

"Yes, thank you, Gabriel. Your wit is so very helpful for my situation."

"As is your sarcasm, little brother."

Cas can't remember why he thought it was a good idea to make this call. Something about being uncomfortable talking on the phone and needing to ease himself into it with someone familiar. But now all he can think about is how his someone familiar is also someone who's a total pain in the ass.

He keeps his voice even, trying not to let himself be irritated.

"It's a condition of my agent taking me back. I have to be in therapy."

Gabriel's voice crackles with surprise.

"Your agent? Are you working again, Castiel?"

"Sort of. I have a proposal and a few chapters. But I don't know how to do this, Gabe. I've got no clue how to find a psychiatrist, much less any idea what I'm going to say once I'm there."

"Just a suggestion, but I'd start with the total nervous breakdown that led to you spending the last several years like a smelly, alcoholic hermit."

Cas squeezes his eyes shut, pinching at the bridge of his nose.

"Still not helping."

Gabriel sighs, then falls silent for a long moment.

"I'm sorry. I'm actually very happy and very proud of you. Do you want me to come out there and stay with you, help you get your melon shrunk?"

It was a tempting offer - letting someone else face his fear for him, hold his hand to and from the psychiatrist's office - but Cas couldn't take it.

"I think I've got to handle it on my own. I mean, that's kind of the whole point, right? Thanks, though."

"Any time. Love you."

Cas hangs up and starts his computer, typing "psychiatrist" into the search bar. He stares at the list of results and frowns.

He can't decide what he feels more - ashamed that it's come to this or proud that he's doing something about it.

He clicks on the top result, picks the phone back up.

"Yes, hello. I was wondering if Dr. Moseley is accepting new patients?"

* * *

Castiel's appointment is two days later, first thing in the morning.

He sets his alarm clock, and then checks it three more times to make sure he's done it correctly. This is only the second time he's had had to get up at a specific time in years – the last being his recent appointment with Pamela, when he was so nervous that he was awake more than half the night anyway - and he's worried he's forgotten how to operate the damn thing.

He pulls out his clothes, pressing them carefully. He tries to think about what he will say to this therapist, this total stranger. How he will explain the fact that he has to be there.

And then he drinks enough whiskey to make the world spin and double, enough to fill up all the empty spaces inside him and leave no room for his anxieties. Enough to make him black out until the beeping alarm startles him back to consciousness, the thin light of morning slipping around his drapes.

* * *

A month passes.

Dean's car is missing from its usual place in the driveway next door more often than not, busy with work and helping Sam and Jess with the new baby, but Cas doesn't really seek him out in the few times Dean is home. He's too consumed with therapy and writing.

He hasn't decided if Dr. Moseley is his savior or Satan incarnate, but he can't deny that things are starting to change for him. At his first appointment he could barely speak without tearing up, and he didn't even know why. She just handed him tissues and nodded, making little notes to herself, and told him he'd need to come in twice a week.

A week later she tells him his diagnosis – generalized anxiety disorder with comorbid depression and alcohol dependency. Castiel feels like this should somehow make him feel worse, all these clinical labels slapped all over him like he's some sort of damaged shipping container. But it doesn't. His problems have names; therefore, they have treatments. His issues are separate from Cas himself, things he can hold out and examine at a distance now. It's better, a bit.

The medications and behavioral therapies she implements don't hurt, either.

She makes him go out for groceries instead of ordering them online, an assignment that takes Cas three tries to accomplish because he has a panic attack in the produce section on the first one, then goes back only to run out on a full cart in the checkout line when the cashier looks up and asks him if he'd prefer paper or plastic.

But he gets through it, learns some techniques for quieting the voice in his head that tells him that everyone is judging him. He goes to a movie, even buys himself popcorn. He sits in a coffee shop to write, learns to smile back at the barista and then focus on his work instead of the swarms of people around him.

And then Dr. Moseley makes him talk about horrible things.

"Tell me about something painful in your past."

Cas' breath is sharp, a tremor in his chest like his lungs are seizing. He expects to flash back on some scene with Dean or his drug and sex haze spiral. But he doesn't.

What comes up is so much worse.

"My father was the only person I was completely sure loved me. And now he's dead, and I don't know if anyone will care that much about me ever again."

Cas cries for the rest of the session after that, ugly, body-wracking sobs that he can barely breathe through. But he feels freer, stronger once it subsides.

She sends him to AA. He doesn't participate, not yet, and he hasn't completely stopped drinking, but he can't help but see something serene in the stories of struggle, feel something reverential and peaceful during every Thursday night meeting in the damp basement of Our Lady of Mercy.

He's healing.

And then Dr. Moseley drops another bomb.

"What about the relationships in your life currently, Castiel?"

"Um, there aren't any, really. I've been trying to keep in touch with my brother, but he can be difficult."

Cas fidgets with the button on his cuff, twisting it hard enough that he almost snaps the thin thread holding it on.

"You mentioned something once about a neighbor, an ex-love."

Cas nods, spreading his fingers on the knees of his jeans like thin, white spiders against the dark fabric.

"Yes. Dean."

The name is difficult to say here, in this place where all his pain and darkness have been pulled out of him and shoved into the sunlight.

"How is your relationship with Dean?"

"It's good. We've been able to discuss our history, make amends to one another."

"And that's the extent of it? Friendly neighbors, no residual romantic feelings?"

He thinks about how his heart still leaps every time he hears Dean's voice rumble through the shared wall of their homes, how his dreams - when he's lucky enough to have pleasant ones - are filled with green eyes and a hard jaw, stubble and strong fingers.

He thinks about the bouquet of pens he'd found on his front step the day after their trip to New York. Two dozen of his favorite ball points in a rainbow of colors, arranged with rubber bands and standing in the same empty jar that used to sit on his nightstand in Dean's room. The note tucked into the top was simple, perfect. "Congratulations, Cas. I'm so proud of you."

"...There are still feelings there, yes."

"Have you discussed those with Dean?"

"What?" Cas is shocked, the idea so unfathomable that he can't believe Dr. Moseley would even ask the question. "Of course not. Dean is in a relationship."

"And yet you persist in having feelings for him, hidden under the pretense of a friendship. Do you believe he may reciprocate those feelings?"

Cas can't sit still now, fidgeting and flushed and anxious. His body feels too big, too obvious, but when his voice comes it is very, very small.

"I don't actually know."

"Then I suggest you find out."

"_What?"_

"Open, honest relationships are a necessary and integral part of a healthy life, Castiel. This man is significant to you, and not just because of your past. So be honest with him, and ask for the same."

Cas sits in shocked silence, his mouth literally hanging open.

"At least think about it, Castiel. Our time is up for the day."

* * *

Cas thinks about it. A lot.

At first he just thinks that Dr. Moseley is clearly a quack to have suggested such a stupid thing. And then he starts thinking about what it would be like if he actually went through with it, if he really tried to have a future with Dean beyond small talk on the porch and the odd day when Lisa was out of town.

He thinks about it while sorting his laundry, while making a sandwich, while staring at his ceiling and waiting for sleep to claim him. He thinks about it in the shower, and lets his thoughts spill over into fantasies of Dean coming back to him, joining him in the hot spray of water every morning and pressing hard and wet against his back, his mouth teasing at the nape of Cas' neck until all thoughts of getting clean are forgotten.

He thinks about it so much that it soon becomes the only thing he can think about, which is a problem because (a) he's learned that obsessive thinking is unhealthy and (b) it's impossible to move forward with his book when all he can do is imagine a thousand scenarios where he tells Dean he's still in love with him.

Cas can't see any way around it. The only way this is going to end is if he actually _does _something. So with a feeling somewhere on the spectrum between petrified and giddy, Cas starts doing more than thinking about it. He formulates a plan.

He makes a list and goes to the grocery store. Then he even braves the mall and picks up a new shirt, one the sales clerk assures him highlights his "movie star looks." Castiel laughs at her, but some small part of him is pleased; hopeful. He goes back home and spends hours making sure the house is spotless, and then he sits by his front window and waits for the Impala, cursing the fact that he's reduced to stalking since he still hasn't gotten Dean's number.

Dean pulls up just after six o'clock, early for him, and Cas is out his front door before Dean even gets the car door closed behind him.

"Hey, Cas. What's up?"

"I would like to invite you to dinner some time this week, Dean. There have been some... developments, in my life, and I would like to share them with you. But, um, I think it may be best if Lisa doesn't join us this time."

Dean raises his eyebrows at Cas' stranger-than-normal behavior, but then shrugs.

"Sure, man. I've got client dinners for the next couple of days, but I'll be free on Friday night. And don't worry about the Lisa thing – we've been... well, our schedules aren't really syncing up right now anyway. So it'll just be me."

"Excellent. I will see you Friday at 7."

* * *

6:57 on Friday and Cas has showered and shaved and dressed and wasted ten whole minutes trying to control his crazy hair. The burgers are ready to go on the grill and a thousand fancy condiments and sliced vegetables are arranged on the counter so Dean can build his ideal hamburger. Cas has even made hand-cut french fries and baked an apple pie, put a variety of sodas in the fridge.

(He knows Dean would prefer beer. Cas isn't strong enough to have it in the house.)

And while he prepared all that, his hands were busy enough to distract him from thinking too much about his plans for the night, the way he was going to bare his soul and (probably) let Dean trample across his heart once again.

_Ding Dong._

Cas smooths his hands over himself one last time and walks to the door. Deep breath in, slowly out. And he turns the handle.

Dean is there, filling the doorway and looking like sex walking. He's wearing dark jeans and a green plaid shirt that highlights his eyes and summer tan. He actually shaved and smells amazing and Cas thinks that there is no way in hell he is going to find the strength to follow through on tonight.

And all through the meal, as he makes small talk and listens to Dean's stories about his new nephew, John, Cas completely avoids the reason he scheduled this stupid dinner in the first place.

_I really am going to be too frightened to do this_.

But then they're washing the dishes, Cas up to his elbows in the soapy sink, Dean at his side with a dish towel to dry. So Cas can't see his face, doesn't have to see Dean's reaction, and can pretend that he's just saying this to himself again like the hundreds of times he's practiced it.

His voice seems too loud, too disconnected. Cas feels like he's hovering somewhere near the ceiling, watching this scene play out beneath him, beyond his control.

"Dean, I have to be honest with you about something."

Dean barely hesitates, oblivious and focused on swiping the towel across the dripping dish Cas has handed him.

"Sure. Shoot."

"I've been going to therapy and working on myself, getting to a healthier place in my life. A big part of that is assessing myself and my relationships."

_Breathe. Slow down._

"I know you're with Lisa and that it's been a very long time. I know that you are successful and happy and have moved on with your life. But it's not fair of me to continue being your friend and pretending that I don't feel something more for you."

He stares out the small window over the sink, the night beyond offering him no distraction. It's just featureless and blank, swallowed by blackness.

"I'm in love with you, Dean. I think I always have been."

* * *

Dean's hands are shaking.

Very carefully, he puts down the dish, lays the towel on top of it. His chest is wrecked, his heart pounding so quickly that it's like one solid beat, his breath caught and choking in his tight throat. And he's got no fucking clue what's happening, because his brain is static and the only thing he hears is the rushing of blood in his ears.

But his trembling hands know what to do, reaching out and wrapping themselves around Cas' slim hips, turning him until he's facing Dean. He's close enough that Dean can feel the shudder of Cas' uneven breath, every exhale ghosting over Dean's skin. He can see the stutter of Cas' heart in the fluttering pulse of his neck, the bob of his throat when he swallows, the flexing tension in his jaw.

But it's not enough, not nearly, so Dean steps forward, crowding Cas back until he's trapped between Dean and the kitchen cabinets. Dean exhales, slow and ragged, the corner of his mouth twitching up as his eyes rake over every curve and line of Cas' mouth. His thumbs dip just below the edges of Cas' waistband, tracing small circles against hot skin.

They're so close now, nothing between them but heat and charged air and Dean can practically taste the salt of Cas' skin, remember perfectly how soft his hair is when it's threaded between Dean's fingers.

And it's all suddenly so clear, so obvious. How he really feels about Cas, how much is missing from his relationship with Lisa.

How much of a complete dumbass he is.

Because Dean wants this more than anything he's ever wanted, more than the Impala, more than his degree, more than his own life. He wants it so much that he's consumed by it, every cell of his body screaming for Castiel.

And it's right there, Cas pressed in a hot, hard line between Dean and the kitchen counter, his full mouth inches away and practically begging for Dean to capture it and pour out every word he's holding back, lick and suck and bite until his tongue remembers the inside of Cas' mouth as well as it knows his own. For Dean to show him everything he's feeling, everything he's kept buried inside since he tossed his mattress through Cas' window months ago.

He thinks that maybe it wasn't a mistake, that maybe fate isn't always a bitch. That maybe this was where he was always supposed to be; he just got the address a little wrong.

And that now it's time for Dean to come home.

His tongue darts out to lick across his lips, his mouth parting as he inhales... but then he remembers his vow.

_You're not fucking things up anymore, remember? _

_Especially not things that are as important as this_.

So Dean stops.

He groans and tips his face down, his forehead coming to rest against Cas' as he tries to catch his breath. And then he has to close his eyes because the only thing he can see is a field of burning blue, and that's not making this any easier.

Dean wills Cas to understand the things that he can't say yet.

_I love you, too. I'm pretty sure I always will. And I want nothing more than to tie you to your bed and spend the next fifty years having my way with you, but we've got to do this right._

_There's something I have to take care of first, someone who deserves better. _

With what he's sure is a super-human display of strength, Dean manages to pull himself back from Castiel, stumbling.

"I can't Cas, I can't do this."

And he practically runs for the door.

* * *

Cas stands alone in the kitchen, dirty dishwasher still dripping from his fingertips onto the tile, and stares toward the door that Dean just slammed shut.

He'd bared his heart, and he was sure he'd seen love in Dean's eyes, felt it in his touch.

But nothing had changed; all Dean had said was that he still couldn't be with him.

_Eight years, and Dean still can't face who he is, what he wants._

Cas slides down the cabinets until he's on the cold floor, hugging his knees so hard that his knuckles turn white. As if he squeezes hard enough he'll be able to hold himself together.

Hot tears course down his cheeks, falling to mix with the cold water on the floor.


	10. Chapter 8

Three days pass, and Cas is fine.

He goes to therapy; he talks to Pamela. He writes. Then he reads back over everything he's written and throws it out, starts over. He washes his whites. He dozes through some cheesy Molly Ringwald movie from the '80s on TV.

Cas' mantra has become this – he can't change who Dean is and he can't control how he chooses to live his life. The only thing Cas can control is his response to it, so he does.

That's what he tells Dr. Moseley, anyway.

And he believes it, sort of, until he walks through his kitchen and, for no real reason, stops and stares at the leftover pie; the one he baked for that disastrous dinner with Dean. He must have seen it there, sitting on the counter and covered in tin foil, at least a dozen times since that night.

But this time is different somehow, because the sight of those sad, forgotten slices of sugar and apples rips a giant fucking gash in the blissful bubble of denial Cas has been living in. And then the bubble collapses in on itself and creates a black hole in Cas' chest, wide and yawning and sucking in all the rage in the known universe.

Cas lets out a strangled cry and rips the foil from the pie plate, scooping up gooey handfuls of pastry that drip from his fingers for a moment before he flings them at the sink.

Goddamned pie that he wasted so much time on, just because he knows how much Dean loves it.

At least he knows how much Dean loves _something._

He destroys the pie, mutilating it with his bare hands as if it were a voodoo doll that would make Dean magically feel all the pain Cas is inflicting on it. He doesn't stop until the dish is scraped bare, his hands shaking and sticky where he braces them on the side of the sink, bent over and gasping for breath.

He looks down at the mess and sighs, tries to calm down. He flips on the garbage disposal and shoves every speck of pie down the drain and out of his sight, but it doesn't help. The anger burns, consuming Cas so completely that all he sees is a hazy red.

That's how he finds himself pounding on Dean's front door at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday morning, growing even angrier when he realizes that it's a work day so the bastard probably isn't even home.

Lisa is, though, answering the door in yoga pants and a loose t-shirt, her stupidly shiny brown hair in a perky ponytail that Cas wants to hack off with dull garden shears.

_Calm down. It's not her fault that her boyfriend's an idiot._

He takes a deep breath, his voice even rougher than normal under the strain of controlling his rage.

"Is Dean home?"

Lisa raises an eyebrow, leans against the door frame. "Well, that's an interesting question, Castiel. I mean, Dean's not _here,_ but it's entirely possible that he's at home."

Cas frowns, tilts his head. "I don't understand."

"He doesn't live here anymore. It was time, really. From the day he moved in, there was just always something... missing." Lisa shakes her head, remembers who she's talking to. "Anyway, he moved out Friday night. I kind of thought you knew?"

Friday night. Right after Cas told Dean he loved him and Dean ran out the front door. He didn't run out because he was afraid or ashamed.

He ran out to end things with Lisa.

The anger drains away, leaving Cas weak and stunned and hollow. He feels his whole world shift, shattering apart and slowly reforming around this new knowledge. And then everything is suddenly shining; the Earth becomes such a beautiful place.

"No, I didn't know that." His voice is softer, shaking a bit at the edges. "Why would you think that I did?"

Lisa looks down, crosses her bare feet at the ankles.

"Well, because I thought it might have something to do with you. Thought that maybe something had... rekindled." She twists at the ends of her ponytail as she stares at him, shrugging when she sees Cas' confusion.

"Dean told me about his history with you after that dinner party I dragged you to earlier this summer. Sorry about that, by the way. I mean, he'd told me when we met that his only other significant relationship had been with a man during college, but he never actually told me your name, so I didn't put it together that you were his ex until he spelled it out for me."

Lisa is the picture of nonchalance, discussing her ex-boyfriend's romantic history with Castiel like she's talking about weather patterns. Which tells Cas two things – she really was ready for things to end with Dean, and she has known he's bisexual for a long, long time.

"Dean's... out?"

"Yeah, I told you, he moved-"

"No, I mean," Cas blushes, he's always hated this particular phrase, "of the closet."

"Oh. Yeah, of course. He has been, since college. He even does some volunteer work with the Boston GLBT Alliance now and then. He's got a soft spot for young people having trouble coming to terms with their sexual identity."

Dean isn't trying to hide who he is, he hasn't hidden his history with Castiel. He's just trying to do the right thing for Lisa... and, just maybe, for starting over on the right foot with Cas.

Cas can't feel his legs, can't feel the porch beneath his feet. He grips the door frame tight enough to hold himself up, his blunt nails biting into the wood, and asks the only question he has left.

"Lisa, do you know where he went?"

"He's crashing with Sam until he finds a place." She takes in Cas' anxiety, his laser focus.

"Would you like the address?"

* * *

Cas can hear the baby crying before he even reaches Sam's door, so it takes a few tries knocking before he can be heard.

Finally, Sam appears, looking wrecked. His long hair is tangled, there's something that looks like dried spit-up on his shoulder, and he's got a screaming bundle of blankets in his arms.

He sees Cas and makes an attempt at looking confused but it's half-hearted at best, like he's too exhausted to fully express anything anymore.

"Castiel? What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for Dean."

Sam nods, because of course that's why his brother's ex-boyfriend has shown up at his door in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, looking like he's going to stroke out if he doesn't talk to Dean in the next five seconds. Too bad Sam won't be much help.

"You just missed him. But you're welcome to come in and wait-"

John starts screaming again and Sam steps back wearily, bouncing the baby as he motions for Cas to come in with his head. Cas walks in quietly and closes the door behind him.

Sam and Jessica's apartment is a complete disaster – baby accessories covering all but a small pathway through the living room, the couch piled high with a haphazard collection of blankets and pillows, and the surrounding area littered with Dean's suitcases, clothing, and work files. Papers are strewn across the coffee table with a laptop perched on top of them, open and asleep.

"Sorry," Sam offers over his son's cries. "We have too many people living here right now, and it's such a little space. Jess just needed a break. So I sent her to a spa and said I'd get the house straightened up but John just won't go to sleep... we're all kind of a mess right now."

And Cas feels like he might literally vibrate right out of his skin if he doesn't track down Dean soon and find out what happened, why he hasn't come back to explain things to Cas, where they're going from here. He's confused and hopeful and nervous and about a thousand other things that leave his nerves wound tight enough to fray... but this is Dean's only family standing before him, adorable and desperate and pitiful.

So Cas just smiles, small and resigned, and reaches out to squeeze Sam's arm reassuringly.

"Go take care of your son, Sam. I'll see if I can get things straightened up a bit for you out here."

The look of relief on Sam's face is enough to convince Cas that it was worth the small sacrifice of his sanity to help Sam reclaim some of his. Sam turns and slowly walks off, disappearing into a back room while making cooing whispers to John.

Cas sighs and frowns, taking stock of the mess and trying to determine where to start. In the end, he decides to simply follow the stench to the kitchen first, taking out the trash and scrubbing the sizable mountain of crusty dishes in the sink. Then he works his way out to the living room, collecting toys and blankets and pacifiers and baby clothes until they only occupy one corner.

Which leaves nothing but Dean's stuff left to organize – his makeshift bed of mussed sheets and a pillow that smells like Old Spice and Dean's skin, rumpled clothing spilling out of the two suitcases and all over the floor. Cas wants to be respectful, wants to make sure that Dean doesn't feel like he's intruding where he shouldn't, so he tries to disrupt as little as possible while carefully folding the clothing, making up the couch.

He straightens the papers that cover the coffee table, unsure of how to arrange them. And in doing so, he accidentally bumps the laptop, the screen brightening back to life. Cas expects to see a log-in screen or maybe some spreadsheet of revenue figures or whatever it is that Dean does for a living, but it's not. The screen is mostly white, the cursor blinking slowly at the bottom of a short document.

It's a letter, actually... one that has his name at the top.

So Castiel throws any thoughts of respecting Dean's privacy out the window – _it's addressed to me, after all - _and sinks down onto the couch, his eyes devouring the words before him.

_Cas,_

_I don't know what to do. I mean, I know what I want to do – I want to kick down your front door and beg you to fuck me into the mattress until I can't see straight, but I don't know if that's the right thing. _

_I'm trying to do stuff the right way now, trying to keep from ruining things anymore. So I didn't kiss you before I ended things with Lisa. That was right, I know that much. And now I'm single, but it's only been three days – if I go to you now, does that make it some sort of rebound thing? I don't feel like it would, because things have been essentially over with Lisa for so long that there really isn't anything to rebound from. But is that still disrespectful? Is it just me being so in love with you that I can't think straight? I don't know._

_Here's what I do know: I know that I'm miserable without you. I know that I think about driving to your house at least 67 times a day, and not even to see you necessarily, but just because I know I would feel better if I was closer to you, even a little bit. I know that I re-read sections of your book every night before I go to sleep because even though I was an idiotic little shit back then, it chronicles the happiest time of my life. And I know that I've written seven different drafts of this letter because you're the one that's good with words but I really want this to not suck._

_Because of all the things I've been trying to not fuck up lately, you are the most important. And I just need you to know that I'm in for real this time. 100% out and proud and devoted, and I'll do anything to prove it to you. I'll march in the pride parade and stick a giant rainbow bumper sticker on the back of the Impala. I'll hold your hand when we walk down the sidewalk and kick the shit out of anyone who's got a problem with it. I'll tattoo your name across my ass in big black letters. I'll give you the keys to my house (...once I have one)._

_Damn it, Cas, I'll do whatever you want me to do, I'll give you anything I have. Just say the word, and it's yours._

_I'm a different man now – a better one, I hope. And, if you'll let me, I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving it to you._

_Yours, always and completely,_

_Dean_

Cas sits there for a long moment, reading every word over and over again as if he could sear them into his retinas, trying to memorize every letter and space and punctuation mark until he's sure he will be able to read them behind his eyes for the rest of his life. He drags his fingers over the words, smudging the computer screen, his eyes growing blurry. He can practically feel Dean's confusion, his sincerity. His love.

It takes Cas a few tries to find his voice around the huge lump in his throat;when he does, it comes out desperate, too loud in the the now-quiet apartment.

"Sam? Sam, where did Dean go?"

Sam tiptoes quickly out of the baby's room, silent but frantic, with a hand at his lips in the universal gesture of for-the-love-of-God-please-shut-the-hell-up.

"I just got John to sleep," he whispers.

"Sorry," Cas is still loud, his chest so tight that he feels lucky that he's able to speak at all. "But I really need to find Dean. Right now."

Sam looks away and tries to run his fingers through his hair, but he hits a tangle that's cemented with what looks like dried milk. His hand falls to his side, defeated.

"I don't know exactly where he is," he says, so quietly that that Cas practically has to read his lips. "But he's got this favorite bar, McGreevy's. It's a couple blocks down and it's probably not a bad place to start."

And Castiel, in a fit of uncharacteristically-physical affection, flings himself at Sam, smiling when he feels those giant octopus arms wrap all the way around him and squeeze back.

"Thank you, Sam," he whispers into his shoulder, rough and ragged.

Sam chuckles, pats softly at Cas' back.

"Go get him, Cas."

* * *

Dean thinks he might hate Boston.

He hates the smell of the coast and the squawking sound of the fucking seagulls. He hates that half of the sidewalks are made of this uneven, weather-beaten brick that Ben Franklin probably took a shit on two-and-a-half centuries ago so they're too "historical" to ever be replaced, no matter how many times Dean turns his ankle. He hates the tour buses, these obnoxiously painted amphibious vehicles that rumble through the streets and the river, and the swarms of tourists that crowd the city in the summer months.

He hates that his home office is now just a corner of the couch he sleeps on, that he has to try to make phone calls in a tiny apartment with a baby that never seems to stop screaming. He hates that it cost him over a week's pay to park his car in a garage four long blocks away from Sam's stupid home and he hates that it's probably a good thing he can't drive around much anyway because he stays lost in the old, crooked streets that make no damn sense.

But mostly he hates it because he thinks of Cas every time he sees "Boston" printed on street signs, on the sides of buses, on t-shirts in shop windows. It only makes him think of how Castiel left everything and moved across the country, all because of a cheesy song on a jukebox and giving Dean's half-baked philosophies entirely too much credit.

Dean's trying to give them both some time and distance, to figure out what the smart thing to do is, and being reminded of Cas at every street corner is making it exponentially harder.

He trudges out of the bar without having ordered anything harder than a Coke, because if he doesn't keep his head clear he knows he'll find himself pounding on Castiel's door in less than an hour, getting the timing right be damned.

He's just not sure if he's ever going to know when the right time comes or what's the right thing to do. He'd give anything for a little insight, some clue of how to move forward from here.

Dean sighs and stops under a light pole, caught between its circle of orange light and the last rays of the setting sun. He puts a cigarette between his lips and fishes his old Zippo out of his pocket, rubbing his thumb over the inscription carved in the silver, now worn and faded from years of use.

_For when you need sparks beyond the ones between us. -C_

Dean blinks back the tears and lights his cigarette, inhaling deeply.

"Dean!"

For a second he freezes, unsure of what he heard. But there it comes again, that familiar grit and gravel voice, closer now and slightly breathless.

"Dean!"

Dean turns, slowly, convinced that he's finally become so heart-sick that he's lost any grip on reality and is now experiencing full-on hallucinations.

But, no. It's really Cas, jogging over those stupid cobblestone sidewalks toward him, his shirt wrinkled and only half-tucked into his dark pants, his eyes bright and his cheeks flushed pink.

And Dean barely has time to register that much before Cas is slamming into him, his arms tight around Dean's shoulders. The cigarette falls, forgotten, from Dean's fingers as his hands come up to run over Cas' sharp shoulder blades, slide down the hard muscles of his back.

"Did you mean it?" Cas' voice is rough and deep in Dean's ear, his lips so close that they brush over his skin like feathers.

And Dean wants to just say yes, to take credit for whatever miracle has brought Cas here to him, warm and perfect and pressed against him in the street. But he has to make sure, has to be clear in what's happening.

"Mean what?"

Cas tangles his fingers in Dean's too-long hair, messing it up as he tugs his head down the few inches to his own level, his eyes locked on Dean's and only inches away.

"The letter. The one on your computer that you wrote to me. Did you mean it?"

Dean doesn't bother wondering how Cas saw the draft he'd been working on back at Sam's. He just tells the truth.

"Every word."

And then he can't say any more, because Cas' mouth has claimed his, hot and wet and insistent, the taste of Cas on his tongue so familiar and sublime that Dean can't help but groan. They stumble back a few steps until Cas is pressed into the wall of the building behind them, too wrapped up in each other to hear the cat-calls from passers-by.

Cas' body is hot and hard against him, the rough brick biting into the skin of Dean's hands where they're braced on the wall as he leans into Cas, Dean's thigh sliding between his legs. And Dean can taste the bitter smoke on his tongue, but beyond that, so much more, he tastes rain and peppermint and _Cas._ He sucks Cas' bottom lip between his own, drags his teeth across it as he gasps for breath, his lungs filling with the warm smell of Cas' skin.

They're desperate, starving, trying to make up for eight lost years in one kiss, and when Cas grinds his hips against his leg, Dean thinks he actually might die if they aren't naked and sweating together _soon._

But - for now, at least - Dean's content to just keep kissing Cas on the street, re-learning the curves and planes of his body beneath his hands. Feeling like he's finally where he belongs, knowing that he's come home. And it overwhelms him, all-consuming and so much better than he remembered, because he knows now that there will never be anything else for him.

There never really was.

Dean leans back, just far enough that he can see Cas in the dim light, and takes a shaky breath. He slides his hands along either side of Cas' hard jaw, the stubble rough on his palms, and strokes his thumbs over those sharp cheekbones. And Cas is looking back at him like he always has, like Dean's the eighth fucking wonder of the world or something, and he's so overcome that all he can do is smile, bright and wide enough to wrinkle the corners of his eyes, before closing the distance between them and capturing Cas' mouth once again.

And, suddenly, Dean decides he actually loves Boston after all.


	11. Chapter 9

**A/N:** This is it, guys. Thank you, so very much, for all the wonderful support that got me to the finish line. Giant internet hugs for everybody.

* * *

"You know, Cas, that letter you found was just a draft. It wasn't a final version that should be considered legally binding or anything."

The needle continues buzzing behind him, Dean's ass bare and stinging where the tattoo artist is putting the final touches on her work.

"Are you saying you didn't mean what you said?" Cas raises an eyebrow, smirking, knowing he's got Dean trapped.

Dean just sighs; he knows it too.

"Of course I meant it. I just don't know why you had to take me up on this particular idea. I mean, the Pride Parade is next week, couldn't we just go to that instead?"

"Oh, we will," Cas muses, distracted by watching Dean's ass bounce when the artist stops for a moment to swipe at excess ink. "We will be there with our beautiful new tattoos."

Dean just makes some indeterminate noise of complaint.

"Oh, hush. I already got mine and I didn't whine once."

"Yours wasn't on the CHEEK OF YOUR ASS, Cas."

Cas smiles and touches the edge of the gauze on the left side of his chest. It covers a fresh tattoo, a beautifully detailed design of a cowboy on horseback, black and intricate.

When Dean found out that Cas was actually going to take him up on his (until then purely rhetorical) suggestion that he tattoo Cas' name across his butt, he tried to fight back by insisting that Cas get one too, something symbolic of Dean. So when Cas readily agreed to it, Dean told him to get a tattoo of the Winchester Repeating Arms logo, because he's always been pretty proud of how badass his last name is.

Cas was the one who decided to put it over his heart.

"You know, Dean, you're the one that came up with this whole idea in the first place. I'd have been perfectly happy with some less painful and bloody token of our affection."

Dean drops his face into the table beneath him.

"Now you tell me."

The needle stops buzzing, the artist sitting back and snapping her gloves.

"Okay, we're all done here."

She hands Dean a mirror and maneuvers him until he can see the reflection. He has to admit that the design Cas drew for him looks awesome, all these black symbols linking together to form a geometric-like pattern. Dean hadn't been too sure about it when Cas told him his big idea to write his name in the language of angels (since he was named after one and everything), but it turned out to be pretty amazing.

Amazing, but kind of long.

"All this is just your name, Cas?"

"Hm? Oh, um, yes. This section here -" and Cas' finger hovers over the bottom of the design "- that is my name in Enochian."

Cas' eyes are wide and unblinking, his face a terrible approximation of innocence that makes Dean's heart sink.

"That part's your name, okay. What's all the rest of it mean, then?"

Cas looks down at the tattoo, won't meet Dean's gaze.

"Well, it's slightly open to interpretation of course, but, uh, a loose translation would be..." Cas tries biting at his cheek to hold his smile in check and fails miserably. He's beaming as he finishes. "Property of."

Property of Castiel. Permanently branded on Dean's ass.

Dean doesn't move for a solid five seconds, shocked, and the grin slowly slides off of Cas' face, replaced by a look of increasing worry.

And Dean tries to find it within himself to be offended and bitchy, if only to mess with Cas' head, but he can't even fake it. He just starts laughing, loud and genuine and infectious, until Cas and everyone else in the tiny shop are laughing along with him.

And when he finally stops, gasping for breath and wiping at his eyes, he pulls Cas close so he can whisper in his ear.

"Don't think that I won't be punishing you for this one later, and for a long time to come."

Cas pulls back, his eyes flashing and hungry.

"That's exactly what I was hoping you'd say."

* * *

"The big moving day is tomorrow, Cas. You sure you want me around all the time?"

Cas shimmies even closer on the bed and chuckles, his face pressing into the warm bend of Dean's neck, his hand sliding along the soft sliver of skin peeking between Dean's t-shirt and boxers.

"You've been living here for two months while we looked for a place. I already have you around all the time... now we'll just be able to be noisier about it."

And it's been perfect, living together. Not literally, of course - they bicker over what temperature to set the thermostat at and which Chinese place has the best take-out - but even the fights are perfect.

Because it's the two of them - it's Dean and Cas - and they can snark at each other with the knowledge that they're still going to be there tomorrow and the day after, cuddling on the couch and yelling at the TV, running out to the grocery store and doing their laundry together until they forget which shirt belongs to who and just get dressed out of one communal closet.

It's the way it should have always been.

So when they found the big house in the suburbs with the yard and wide porch, Dean didn't blink at pooling their money to make the down payment or the half-hour commute into the city. He was too busy imagining Sam and Jess coming over to barbecue and watch Bruins games on the weekends, relaxing on the porch with Cas and a cigarette every night after work.

Especially since it means getting some distance from Lisa and the vague, nagging guilt Dean feels when he pulls into Cas' driveway every day. It's been weird, having sex with Cas with only a wall dividing them from his ex-girlfriend ...not that that's stopped them.

At. Fucking. All.

But still - he'll be glad when they get settled into their new home.

"Well," he says rolling over to brace himself up on his forearms over Cas, sliding his legs between Cas' open ones. "Should we give this place one last go? A fond farewell fuck?"

Cas' lips purse in a small smirk before he hooks his leg over top of Dean's and shoves at his shoulder at the same time, effectively flipping them and pinning Dean to the mattress.

"Only _one _last go?"

And then he's biting at the shell of Dean's ear, his breath hot and loud that close, and all Dean can do is tilt his head to give him better access and groan because _oh, fuck, it's like there's a direct line between that spot and my dick and how can Cas possibly remember that-_

And then Dean realizes that Cas seems to remember everything; that he pays attention to the details, and Dean's tired of getting trumped.

It's time to show just how quick of a learner he is.

Dean flips them back over, rougher than Cas, more brawn than skill, but it gets the job done. He smiles, wicked, and then turns his attention to what he knows is the highly sensitive skin over Cas' neck, licking and kissing and sucking until the pulse under his lips has grown frantic, Cas' hands scrabbling in Dean's hair and trying to drag him – either up to Cas' lips or down to his dick, he hasn't quite decided.

But Dean's taking control of this one.

_I'm gonna make up for all those nights he spent alone in this house. _

_His last night here is going to be his absolute fucking best._

So Dean slows down, peels both their clothes off and gets Cas to stretch out face-down on the bed beneath him, Dean straddling the back of his thighs. And then Dean drapes himself over Cas' back, lining their limbs up and tangling their fingers together, leaning down and pressing his chest to Cas' back. Their skin is damp in the late summer air, Dean's mouth hot and wet at the curving juncture of Cas' neck and shoulder.

The room is dark and still, silent except the sound of their breath. And Cas is pressed into the mattress by Dean's weight, feeling him hard and hot above him, but it's not enough. He twists his face to the side, trying to reclaim Dean's mouth with his.

"Nuh uh," Dean murmurs, his lips dancing over the skin behind Cas' ear, his blunt nails running in tiny trails up Cas' arms. "Just lie there and enjoy it."

Cas would tease him, tell Dean that he likes it when he's all butch and in charge, but he's too distracted. Dean's tongue is wet and teasing, licking a long line over the knobs of Cas' spine, and it's making him shiver, turning his skin to gooseflesh.

Dean is moving so slowly, reverently, over every inch of Cas' body - across the back of his strong shoulders, down the flat muscles of his back, over the swell of his ass, down the backs of his thighs, and then pausing over that spot on the back of Cas' knee that Dean has discovered always draws these tiny sighs of pleasure out of him. He massages Cas' calves and scratches his nails over the insides of his thighs; by the time Dean presses his thumbs into the arches of his feet, Cas can't even remember what it feels like to have tension in his body.

He's so relaxed, like warm jello, and he's not sure if he wants to have sex or just sleep for the next twelve hours.

Dean slides his hands under Cas' hips and lifts, pulling him to his knees and forearms. Cas sighs, soft and content, waiting to feel Dean's fingers pressing on his ass, reading him to be filled.

Which makes it even more unexpected when, instead, Dean slides himself face-up beneath Cas, licking a long, slow line from his ass around and up to the tip of his rapidly-hardening cock. And that's when Cas' mind is very definitively made up.

He wants sex. Tons of it, epic amounts of sweaty, desperate, vigorous sex.

...then the sleep.

Dean's mouth is slick, hot and wet around Cas' dick, his arms wrapped under Cas' thighs with his fingers splayed over his ass, controlling Cas' movements until he's slowly fucking Dean's mouth. Cas' shoulders start trembling and he's not sure how much is from the sensation of Dean beneath him and how much with the effort to hold himself in that position.

But it's so deliciously filthy and different from how they usually do this. Cas can't see anything but the pillow in front of him, doesn't hear anything other than his gasping breath and Dean groaning beneath and around him.

His hips pick up speed almost without conscious thought, thrusting harder and faster until he worries about accidentally choking Dean for a moment, but Dean just urges him on, his nails biting into Cas' ass, his lips rolled over his teeth to keep Cas from scraping against them.

It's just heat and friction and Dean, vulnerable and exposed beneath him; completely surrendered to Cas' desire, his only focus on bringing pleasure.

With his last fully conscious thought, Cas wonders how it's possible to find something so hot and so tender at the same time.

And then he's lost all sense of rhythm, his hips frantically pounding as Dean's tongue presses hard and flat along the vein on the underside of Cas' cock. The bed is knocking into the wall and Cas is groaning Dean's name over and over, like it's the only word he can remember, the only thing that exists.

Cas buries his face in the pillow beneath him, his teeth tearing at the fabric as the tension builds impossibly tight and low but Dean doesn't let him stop, pulling Cas down toward him, deep into his impossibly tight mouth. And when Cas finally comes, crying out and shuddering, Dean swallows him down and supports Cas' weight when his muscles turn to liquid. Sparks of light flash behind his eyes and his mind has washed blank, and he's too dizzy and trembling with aftershocks to lift himself up enough to roll off of Dean.

So Dean slides out from beneath him and crawls up the bed, muscle sliding under tanned skin, his cock hard and throbbing when he reaches out to pull Cas into his arms.

Cas puts his head over Dean's heart and lies there for a long moment, letting his heartbeat slow enough to match Dean's, drinking in deep breaths of the familiar smell of Dean's skin.

And when he can, Cas stretches up lazily to kiss him, the salty taste of himself lingering on Dean's tongue.

"I'm sorry, I just...need a moment, I think. I promise I'll do you in a minute."

Dean just pulls Cas tighter into his chest, his hand drifting in lazy circles across Cas' back.

"You can do me whenever you want, Cas. That's kind of the whole point."

* * *

Dean tapes up the top of the last box, looking up to wink at Cas when he walks out with the suitcase of essential stuff they'll need the first night in their new house.

Clean clothes, toothpaste, sex toys... the usual.

And then the movers poke their head into the room to tell Dean that they're putting the last bit of furniture on the truck, so he decides that he can't wait any longer.

He crosses the shared porch for the last time and knocks softly on Lisa's door, suspecting (correctly) that she's been watching the activity at Castiel's condo from inside.

She answers almost immediately, smiling because (a) she knows she's been caught and (b) she's happy that she hasn't been forgotten.

"I guess you've come to collect the mattress."

Dean shakes his head, leaning comfortably in the doorway of his old home. "Nah. You keep it. You always liked it better; I never could get used it. Too squishy."

What Dean doesn't tell her is that the king-sized mattress is way too fucking big for Cas, who prefers to sleep pressed against Dean's side, all tangled limbs and bare skin and shared breath.

"I just wanted to say, I don't know, goodbye, I guess? Thank you? I'm really sorry?"

Lisa just shakes her head, reaches out to pull Dean into a hug.

"You don't have to say any of that, Dean. Why don't we just say 'see you later'?" She pulls back from him, looks up into his face. "I'd like to think that we're still friends, after all."

Dean nods, smiling, feeling the final bit of weight lift from his shoulders. He has no idea why the universe chose to bless him with such excessively awesome people in his life, but he's not about to take it for granted.

"Okay, then. I'll see you later, Lisa."

* * *

**One Year Later**

Cas runs his thumb over the the edges of his book, fanning the paper that's already worn from being with him through a week of promotional appearances. He's nervous like he always is in these moments right before he stands at a podium in front of a crowd, readying himself to read his words to strangers, to answer questions that inevitably delve further into his work than even he usually does.

And this one is worse, because it's the first appearance of this book tour that he's had to do without Dean. He had some sort of crisis with one of his customers and had to rush back to work in Boston the day before.

But Cas just takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. He's in that same bookstore in Miami where Dean shoplifted his first book all those years ago. And if he tries hard enough, he can imagine that Dean's there again, hiding just beyond Cas' sight in the back of the room.

With that thought he smiles and steps up to the podium, carefully avoiding looking out at the audience. He never looks before a reading – if the crowd is too large it intimidates him; too small and he's afraid his book is a failure. So he just clears his throat and flips to the neon sticky note that marks the beginning of the chapter he's going to read.

"Hello, I'm Castiel Novak, and I'll be reading to you today from my new novel, _Take These Lies and Make Them True._"

He runs his hand over the spine, pressing the book flat, and notices that his normally blank sticky note is now covered in Dean's familiar, cramped writing.

_You're my whole world, Cas. And you're going to be amazing today._

Cas smiles, clears his throat, begins to read.

It doesn't take long for him to forget the crowd, to forget his fear. He's lost in the words like he always is, in a world of his own making.

And the reading passes quickly, without incident – which is about the best that Cas can hope for when engaging in public speaking - until he reaches the other sticky note, the one that marks the end of the selection. Dean has graffitied this one, too.

_Great job. Now look up and ask for questions._

Cas always does, so he's not sure why Dean thought he'd need the reminder. Maybe he just wanted to help as much as he could without actually being there.

Cas closes the book, raises his face to the crowd, waits for the end of the polite applause.

"Thank you. Are there any questions?"

It normally takes a few seconds for people to react, needing time to reflect and formulate what they want to say. But today, Cas barely finishes speaking before a whole section of people have raised their hands, silent and smiling.

And a second later he starts picking the familiar faces out of the rows of chairs. There's Sam and Jess, with little John on her lap and all dressed up in a tiny blue suit. Gabriel is next to them, the stick of a lollipop hanging out of his grinning mouth.

And there, on the other side of the aisle, are faces Cas wasn't sure he'd ever see again. They're older now, with hair a little thinner and a little grayer, but he would know them anywhere. It's Ellen, flanked by Bobby on her right and Jo on her left, with Ash still rocking the mullet in a seat behind them.

They've all got their hands in the air, fresh copies of Cas' book on their laps. And he's not sure if he's going to be able to answer any of their questions because he's having to work too hard to swallow around the lump in his throat, to try to still the tremble in his lower lip.

But he's saved from having to call on anyone at all when a familiar voice calls out from the back of the room.

"I've got a question."

Cas smiles, presses a hand over his mouth to hold back the half-sob that nearly escapes him.

Because it's Dean, stepping out from behind the stacks and starting up the center aisle of the audience. He looks perfect, striding forward in a charcoal suit and crisp white shirt, his shoes shining and eyes sparkling.

"How does the story end?"

And Cas is almost too stunned to hear his question, has no idea how to answer it.

"What?"

Dean shrugs, keeps walking toward Cas.

"I mean, here's these guys who have been through so much and then – somehow – found their way back to each other. But how does it end? Do they stay together?"

Cas smiles. "You'll have to buy the book to find out."

"Oh, I already did." Dean raises a copy in his left hand, a small piece of paper tucked into the top. "Paid for it, got my receipt this time and everything."

He's reached the podium now and sets the book on top of Cas' battered copy before reaching for his shaking hand, stroking his thumb reassuringly across the pale skin.

"But I don't want to wait to read it. I think I'd like to write my own ending."

And all Cas can see are those green eyes, burning and brilliant, locked on his for a long moment before Dean sinks to one knee.

Time stops and there's no air left in the room, the whole crowd silent and on edge. There's a hundred people hanging on every moment, but Cas can't see any of it. He can't see anything but the man kneeling before him, the love on his face, the shining gold band he's pulled from his coat pocket.

Dean's voice is husky but sure, strong.

"So here's my real question, Cas. Will you marry me?"

Cas is crying, so full of joy and love that he doesn't think he can contain it, sure that he's going to shatter and fly apart and never be the same again.

But his answer rings out loud and clear across the crowd.

"Yes."


End file.
